Page:Ruth Fielding at Lighthouse Point.djvu/92

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82
RUTH FIELDING AT LIGHTHOUSE POINT

"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.