Page:Ballinger Price--Fortune of the Indies.djvu/109

 has to go. Would you, Miss Lucy? Jane can't, unfortunately."

Miss Ellen had sat down again, possibly because she was incapable of standing. Jane flung herself upon the old ladies.

"But it's all arranged!" she cried. "You must let them!"

The aunts were weeping, with all sorts of mixed feelings, and Mark and Alan stepped forth from their corner and stood very straight before Mr. Bolliver.

"We're all ready to go, sir," said Mark, "whenever you say."

Mr. Bolliver laughed.

"Not so fast," he said. "Finish school—not long, now—and take good care of your aunts (I'll talk to them a little later)—and don't let Jane stow away, because it would complicate things afterward."

Jane had vanished. She had fled to the office to search and search a certain log-book for some mention of this fairy-tale. And she found just enough to verify that extraordinary document.

Sept. 2, 1850. Made Hangchow Bay, light wind S. by W. Went to assistance of merchant junk