spirits. "Now take your time, girls," warned Miss Elting. "We will not gulp our food down, even if we have a walk before us this afternoon. And we may have to sleep out-of-doors, but it will not have been the first time for the Meadow-Brook Girls." "Ith thith the thurprithe that you were going to give us?" asked Tommy innocently. "It is a surprise to me, dear. This isn't the place I thought it was at all. The joke is that I don't know where the right place is." "Perhaps, if you would tell us where you wish to go, we might be of some assistance to you," suggested Jane McCarthy. "You can't get the secret from me, Jane," answered the guardian smilingly. "I am going to keep that little secret to myself at all costs. Don't tease me, for I shall not tell you." "It hath cotht a good deal already," piped Tommy. "Let me thee. It hath cotht one automobile, theveral thkirtth, and a girl drowned. Thome cotht that, eh? Pleathe path the beanth." "Tommy has a keen appetite for beans this afternoon. Will you please open another can, Jane?" asked the guardian. "Certainly. Will you have them cold this time, Tommy?" "I will not, thank you. My father thayth there ith more real nourithhment in beanth than there ith in beeftheak. I gueth he knowth. He wath brought up on a bean farm." "Then I'll take the beefsteak and never mind the nourishment," declared Jane, who was not particularly fond of beans. "I'd rather have both," said Margery hungrily. "Of courth you would," teased Tommy. "That ith why you—" "Oh, say something new," groaned Buster. Miss Elting permitted them to jest to their hearts' content. The more they talked the better was she pleased, because it kept them from eating too rapidly. Their meal finished and the dishes cleaned in salt water and sand, the guardian gave thought to their next move. But she was in no haste. The girls were allowed plenty of time to rest and digest their hearty meal, which they did by sitting in the sand with the sun beating down on them.
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