The Captain returned the kiss with good measure and resumed his study of the maps and charts.

“You’ll be a member of the Royal Geographical Society next,” he observed.

“It’s all happened because Billie Campbell has a mole on the sole of her left foot and a Gypsy once told her that was the mark of the wanderer.”

“But you and Elinor and Mary haven’t any moles on the soles of your feet, have you?”

“No, and neither has Miss Campbell.”

“It’s just as well,” commented the Captain.  “One is enough in the party if it’s going to take my little daughter away from her home most of the time.”

“Not most of the time, father,” protested Nancy.  “Only to Palm Beach and across the Continent and to England—­”

At this dangerous turn in the conversation, the door was pushed open and Billie Campbell rushed in, followed by Elinor Butler and Mary Price.

“It’s all settled, Nancy-Bell,” she cried.  “Cousin Helen has consented and the girls can go.  Everything depends on you, now—­”

“We are just studying the map,” answered Nancy quickly, with a demure smile.

Immediately the other girls seated themselves in a circle about the sea captain and his charts, and Mrs. Brown, whose consent had already been gained, presently appeared with a large platter of cookies.

So it was that the Motor Maids and Miss Campbell sailed through the Golden Gate of San Francisco harbor one morning en route for the island empire of Japan.  On the long and sometimes tedious voyage we will not dwell; nor shall we pause until we have left them on the piazza of their new home in Tokyo, while seven Japanese servants are making profound obeisances at the entrance and their attendant families, including three grandmothers and five funny little children, bob and bow in the rear of this formidable company.

Billie, who had scarcely left her father’s side since the joyful moment of their reunion, hung on his arm and smiled up into his face inquiringly; while Miss Helen Campbell, his cousin, exclaimed: 

“Dear me, Duncan; I thought we were to stay at a private house—­not a hotel.”

Mr. Campbell, from his mysterious dwelling places in far distant lands, had made so many things possible for the Motor Maids that Billie’s three friends had come to regard him as a kind of powerful spirit who had only to will things to happen and they happened.  At first they were rather shy of the real Mr. Campbell, big and strong and splendid, the very image of his daughter, Billie, if she had grown half a foot and cropped her light brown hair closely all over her head.