"How ignorant you are," said Adelaide with pretended superiority. "That,
my inexperienced friend, is a wrap for your best hat."

"Oh," said Patty, not much enlightened.

"You see," Adelaide kindly went on to explain, "as soon as you get on
board your steamer you take off your best hat and put it exactly in the
middle of this square, having first spread the square out smoothly on
the bed or somewhere. Then you take up these four corners by the loops
and hang the whole thing on the highest hook in your stateroom. Thus,
you see, your best hat is carried safely across; it is not jammed or
crushed, and it is protected from dust."

"I see," said Patty gravely; "and I suppose the dust is something awful
on an ocean steamer."

The laugh seemed to be on Adelaide at this, but she joined in it and
prophesied that when Patty returned she would confess that that gift had
proved the most useful of all.

Clementine Morse brought a large post-card album which she had filled
with views of New York City.

"I know you will be homesick before you're out of sight of land," she
said; "but if you're not you ought to be, and I hope these pictures will
make you so. When you look at this highly colored representation of
Grant's tomb and realise that it is but a few miles from your own long-
lost hearthstone, I'm sure you will feel qualms of patriotism--or
something."