"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.
