“Certainly, but the powers that be, here at Yardley, say you can’t,” reminded Patsy. “Palm Beach is not for us this Easter. I’m so disgusted over this vacation business!”
“It’s a shame!” exclaimed Mabel. “I don’t want to go any place else. Why can’t we go there, anyway? It would take us two or three days to go and the same length of time to come back. We’d have a week there. That would be better than nothing.”
“I suppose it would,” concurred Patsy rather reluctantly. “It’s only that I hate being torn up by the roots and hustled back here just the very minute I’m getting used to things at the Beach. There is so much to see there. Besides, I’m simply crazy to go to the Everglades. Father promised that he’d hire a real Indian guide, to take us there on an expedition.”
“Let’s write to our people and tell them to write to the registrar, asking if we can’t have that extra week,” proposed Eleanor eagerly. “If your Aunt Martha, our mother and Bee’s mother would all write to her, it might do some good.”
“We can try it. I doubt whether it will help much,” Patsy said gloomily. “Miss Osgood is so awfully strict, you know. It’s our only chance and a slim one. I’m going straight to my room and write to Aunt Martha. Bee can write to her mother as soon as she finishes a theme she’s toiling over. You’d better write to-night, too. The sooner we find out the best or the worst, the sooner we’ll knew what to do about Easter. If we can only have two weeks, Aunt Martha may want to do the Beach anyway. If she doesn’t – well, we’ll have to think up some place nearer Yardley to go to. I’m determined to have some kind of trip, if it’s only to Old Point Comfort. The Wayfarers have been cooped up all winter. It’s time they went wayfaring again.”
CHAPTER II
A HARD-HEARTED REGISTRAR
“If I were a registrar, I’d not be so horrid as Miss Osgood,” wrathfully exclaimed Patsy Carroll.
Four days had passed since the Wayfarers had despatched their letters to their home allies. The quartette were emerging from Yardley Hall as Patsy flung forth her disgruntled opinion of Miss Osgood.
They had been summoned to the registrar’s office after classes that afternoon, there to be stiffly informed by Miss Osgood that she saw no convincing reason for granting them the privilege of an extra week’s vacation.
“You wish this extra week merely on account of a pleasure trip you have planned,” she had coldly pointed out. “I have been besieged by a dozen others with similar requests, none of which I have granted. I have replied to the letters which I have received from Miss Carroll, Mrs. Forbes and Mrs. Perry, stating that it is impossible to make any exception in favor of you girls. I sent for you to come here merely to impress upon you that I shall expect you to return to Yardley, from your Easter vacation, on time. Any delay on your part will constitute a direct defiance of my wishes. Kindly remember this and govern yourselves accordingly.”
Such was the chilly ultimatum that had aroused Patsy’s ire.
“It’s too mean for anything,” she sputtered, as the four started across the campus. “Aunt Martha says in the letter I received from her this morning that unless we can have the extra week’s vacation it’s not worth while making the trip to Palm Beach. We can’t have it, so that settles our grand Florida expedition. If we could go down there in summer it wouldn’t matter so much about losing this trip. But we can’t. It’s too hot down there in summer time for comfort. We’ll never have a chance to go there until we are graduated from college. We’ll be old ladies then and have to go around in wheel chairs,” she ended ruefully.
“Oh, that’s only four years off. We may still be able to totter about with canes,” giggled Eleanor. “Of course, we’ll have snow-white hair and wrinkles, but then, never mind. We can sit and do embroidery or tatting and talk of the happy past when we were young and – ”
“Stop making fun of me, Nellie,” ordered Patsy severely. Nevertheless she echoed Eleanor’s giggle.
“Let’s hustle for the dormitory,” suggested practical Beatrice. “This wind is altogether too frisky to suit me. I’ve had to hang onto my hat every second since we left the Hall.”
“It’s blowing harder every minute,” panted Mabel, as a fresh gust swept whistling across the campus, caught the four girls and roughly endeavored to jerk them off their feet.
“It’s going to snow, I guess. It’s too cold for rain,” remarked Patsy, squinting up at the sky. “Easter comes awfully early this year, doesn’t it? I can’t remember when it’s ever before been in March. That’s another reason why it would be fine to spend it at Palm Beach. The weather there would be perfect.”
“Oh, well, what’s the use in thinking about it,” said Eleanor. “We might as well make the best of things and plan something else.”
“I’m going to write to Auntie the minute I get to my room,” announced Patsy, “and ask her where she thinks it would be nice for us to go for Easter. I’d like it to be near the ocean, though; Old Point Comfort, Cape May, Atlantic City, or some beach resort.”
“I hate to give up the Palm Beach plan. Still, wherever we go, well be together,” reminded Mabel. “You can’t down a strong combination like the Wayfarers.”
It being but a short walk from Yardley Hall to the large dormitory where the students of Yardley lived, the four girls were soon running up the broad stone steps, glad to reach shelter from the wind’s ungentle tactics.
As a preparatory school, Yardley was famed for its excellence. It registered, however, but a limited number of pupils. These lived in one large dormitory, there being no campus houses for their accommodation.
Yardley had been at one time a select boarding school for girls. Later it had become a preparatory school to college, and had earned the reputation of being one of the best of its kind.
As the high school course which the Wayfarers had completed was not sufficiently advanced to carry them into college without additional preparation, they had, after much discussion, chosen to enter Yardley. A year of study there would fit them for entrance into any college which they might select as their Alma Mater.
The fact that Yardley occupied a somewhat isolated position of its own, the nearest town, Alden, being five miles away, did not trouble the Wayfarers. Being true Nature lovers they were never at a loss for amusement during their leisure hours. They found far greater pleasure in tramping the steep hills which rose behind Yardley than making decorous little trips to Alden in Patsy’s car.
Though friendly with their classmates, the Wayfarers nevertheless hung together loyally. They were, as Patsy often declared, “a close corporation” and quite sufficient unto themselves.
As the little band entered the dormitory that blustering afternoon, they were feeling keenly the disappointment so recently meted out to them. It was decidedly hard to put away the rosy visions of Palm Beach that each girl had conjured up in her own mind.
“Come on up to our room, girls, and we’ll make chocolate,” proposed Patsy. “It will probably take away our appetites for dinner, but who cares? I don’t believe I’d have much appetite, anyhow. I’m all upset about this vacation business.”
Seated about the writing table which Patsy had cleared for the occasion, the Wayfarers were presently sipping hot chocolate and devouring sweet crackers to the accompaniment of a mournful discussion of the situation.
As a result none of them had any enthusiasm for either dinner or study that evening. Dinner over they gathered once more in Patsy’s room, still too full of their recent disappointment to banish it from conversation.
“We can’t make a single plan until we know what Aunt Martha wants to do,” asserted Patsy with a sigh. “Oh, I forgot to write to her before dinner! I must do it now. Excuse me, Perry children. Bee will amuse you. Bee, entertain the young ladies. I’m going to be busy for a little while.”
“We