Pat, who had been performing a sort of ceremonial dance among them all, stopped in dismay.
"Oh, Aunt Pen, what about school?"
"Then you will be sorry to lose your teacher, Patsy? But it is almost the first of May and with a little home study you girls can get along. Anyway, mother will be here to decide what is best."
Pat's face was serious.
"I am glad mother's coming home! And Celia, too! But I have loved our school, Aunt Pen! You've made me just like to study all sorts of things! When mother comes I'm going to tease her to let us go next fall to the Lincoln school with Peggy and Sheila and the other girls--and then go to college."
Aunt Pen nodded toward Pat's father. Pat, of course, didn't know that she was trying to say: "There--that's a real girl talking--who wants to be of some service, some day, in this world!"
Then Pat insisted that Capt. Allan tell them more about the old house in the Adirondacks.
"Somehow, I can't imagine him keeping you up there very long, Penelope," laughed her brother. "He doesn't know you as well as I do!"
Capt. Allan described to them the old rambling house built half way up the wooded slope of Cobble Mountain. From its many windows, he remembered, a wonderful view could be had of a sweep of valley, river and surrounding slopes.
"Will has promised me that I may go on with all my experiments and fads just the same! There'll be lots of room there!" she retorted to her brother. "And some day I shall turn Cobble House into a school for girls."