Page:Ruth Fielding at Lighthouse Point.djvu/92

82 "Nor in Maine?" asked Madge, for the other girls were grouped about the room. They were all anxious to hear the castaway's story.

The girl was silent for a moment, her lips very tightly pressed together. Finally she said, with her sly look:

"I guess I ain't obliged to tell you that; am I?"

"Witness does not wish to incriminate herself," snapped Mercy, her eyes dancing.

"Well, I don't know that I'm bound to tell you girls everything I know," said the strange girl, coolly.

"Right-oh!" cried Heavy, cordially. "You're visiting me. I don't know as it is anybody's business how you came to go aboard the Whipstitch"

"Oh, I don't mind telling you that," said the girl, eagerly. "I was hungry."

"Hungry!" chorused her listeners, and Heavy said: "Fancy being hungry, and having to go aboard a ship to get a meal!"

"That was it exactly," said Nita, bluntly. "But Mrs. Kirby was real good to me. And the schooner was going to New York and that's where I wanted to go."

"Because your folks live there?" shot in The Fox.

"No, they don't, Miss Smartie!" snapped the castaway. "You don't catch me so easy.