"Hotel? It's going to be my share of a modest Bloomsbury lodging," she answered. "Got to sing my way from a third-floor-back in a side street to a gorgeous suite at the Ritz!" "We'll watch you!" cried three in chorus. "But we'd rather hear you, darling," said a nice, tailor-made girl, whose puffy eyelids looked as if she had been crying. "Blessed lamb! I hope I'll be better worth hearing! Oh, do go home, all of you; especially you, Jessie! My courage is oozing out at the heels of my shoes. Disappear! I've been farewelling actively for an hour and casually for a week. If they don't take off the gangplank in a minute or two I shan't have pluck enough to stick to the ship." "You can't expect us to brace you up, Tommy," said the rosy youth. "We're losing too much by it. Come along back! What's the matter with America?" "Don't talk to her that way, Carl,"--and the tailor-made girl looked at him reproachfully. "You know she's got nobody and nothing to come back to. She's given up her room. She's quarreled with her beastly uncle at last; all her belongings are in the hold of the steamer, and she's made up her mind." "All ashore that's going ashore!" The clarion tones of the steward rang through the air for the third time, and the loud beating of the ship's gong showed that the last moment had come. The gangplank was removed and the great liner pushed off and slowly wended her way down-river, some of the more faithful ones in the crowd waving handkerchiefs until she was a blur in the distance. "Well, there's no truer way of showing loyalty than by going to Hoboken to see a friend off," said the eyeglassed chap as he walked beside Jessie Macleod to the ferry. "I wouldn't do it for anybody but Tommy." "Nor I!" exclaimed the rosy youth. "Good old Tommy! I wonder whether she'll sing and have a career, or fall in love over there?" "She might do both, I should think; at least it has been done, though not, perhaps, with conspicuous success," was Carl's reply. "Whatever she does, we've lost her," sighed the girl; "and our little set will be so dull without Tommy!" * * * * *