go when we do."

Mrs. Cliff stared at her. "But I have only a bag and the clothes I have
on. I am not ready for a voyage. And there's the house, with nobody but
Willy in it. Don't you see it would be impossible for me to go?"

"What you need for the passage," said Edna, "you can buy here in a few
hours, and everything else you can get on the other side a great deal
cheaper and better than here. As to your house, you can write to that
other lady to go there and stay with Miss Croup until you come back. I
tell you, Mrs. Cliff, that all these things have become mere trifles to
you. I dare say you could buy another house such as you own in Plainton,
and scarcely miss the money. Compared to your health and happiness, the
loss of that house, even if it should burn up while you are away, would
be as a penny thrown to a beggar."

"And there is my new trunk," said Mrs. Cliff, "with my blankets and ever
so many things locked up in it."

"Let it stay there," said Edna. "You will not need the blankets, and I
don't believe any one will pick the lock."

"But how shall I explain my running away in such a fashion? What will
they all think?"

"Simply write," said Edna, "that you are going to Europe as companion
to Mrs. Horn. If they think you are poor, that will explain everything.
And you may add, if you choose, that Mrs. Horn is so anxious to have
you, she will take no denial, and it is on account of her earnest
entreaties that you are unable to go home and take leave in a proper
way of your friends."

It was half an hour afterwards that Mrs. Cliff said: "Well, Edna, I will
go with you. But I can tell you this: I would gladly give up all the
mountains and palaces I may see in Europe, if I could go back to Plainton
this day, deposit my money in the Plainton bank, and then begin to live
according to my means. That would be a joy that nothing else on this
earth could give me."

Edna laughed. "All you have to do," she said, "is to be patient and wait
awhile, and then, when you go back like a queen to Plainton, you will
have had your mountains and your palaces besides."

CHAPTER XXX

AT THE HOTEL BOILEAU

It was early in December,--two months after the departure of Edna and her
little party from New York,--and they were all comfortably domiciled in
the Hotel Boileau, in a quiet street, not far from the Boulevard des
Italiens. This house, to which they came soon after their arrival in
Paris, might be considered to belo