Marion remained standing at the rail, waving her handkerchief, smiling and nodding until the small steamer rounded a jutting-out point of land, then she turned about and faced the three other girls, who had made themselves comfortable in the reclining steamer chairs. "What a fuss you make over all those undergrads, Merry," Jane Abbott remarked languidly. "A casual observer might suppose that each one of them was a very best friend, while we three, who are here present, have that honor. For myself, I much prefer to conserve my enthusiasm." Marion sat down in a vacant steamer chair, and merely smiled her reply, but the youngest among them, Esther Ballard, flashed a defense for her ideal among girls. "That's the very reason why Merry was unanimously voted the most popular girl in Highacres during the entire four years that we have been at the seminary. Nothing was ever too much trouble, and no girl was too unimportant for Merry's loving consideration." "Listen! Listen!" laughed good natured Barbara Morris. "All salute Saint Marion Starr." But Esther, flushed and eager, did not stop. "While you, Jane Abbott"--she could not keep the scorn out of her voice--"while you were only voted the most beautiful." "Only?" there was a rising inflection in Barbara's voice, and she also lifted her eyebrows questioningly. "I think our queen is quite satisfied with her laurels." Jane merely shrugged her shoulders, then turning her dark, shapely head on the small cherry colored pillow with which she always traveled, she asked in her usual languid manner, "Marion, let's forget the past and plan for the future." "You said you had a wonderful vacation trip to suggest, and that you would reveal it when we were on the boat. Well, this is the time and the place." "And the girls?" chimed in Barbara. "Do hurry and tell us, Merry. Your plans are always jolly." And so with a smile of pleasurable anticipation, Merry began to unfold her scheme. "Aunt Belle is going to one of those adorable cottage hotels at Newport. She is just past-perfect as a chaperone and she said that she thought a party of four girls would be ideal. It will only cost each of us about $100 a month." "A mere mite," Jane Abbott commented, "and the plan, as far as I'm concerned, is simply inspirational. I've always had a wild desire to live at one of those fashionable cottage-hotels, but not having a mother to take me, I have never been. I know my father will be glad to have me go, since your Aunt Belle is to be there, and I shall ask for $150 a month, so that we may have plenty of ice cream and not feel stinted." The usually indolent Jane was so interested in Merry's plan that she was actually sitting erect, the small cherry-colored pillow in her lap.