ere infectious. They'd turn us out of the camp, and treat us like
lepers."

"Oh, I say! It would be no fun at all!"

They had reached Shipley by this time--a little quaint old-world place
consisting of one village street of picturesque cottages, most of
them covered with roses or vines, and with flowery gardens in front.
The tiny church stood on a mound, surrounded by trees, and looked far
smaller than the handsome vicarage whose great gates opened opposite
the school. The post office appeared also to be a general store, where
articles of every description were on sale. From the ceiling were
suspended tin pails, coils of clothes-line, rows of boots or shoes,
pans, kettles, brooms, and lanterns, while the walls were lined with
shelves containing groceries and draperies, stationery, hosiery, quack
medicines, garden seeds, and, in fact, an absolutely miscellaneous
assortment of goods and chattels, some old, some new, some fresh, some
faded, some appetizing, and some decidedly stale.

Raymonde asked to use the telephone, and retired to the little
boxed-off portion of the shop reserved for that instrument, where she
successfully rang up Dr. Wilton, and received his promise to call
during the morning at the camp. This most pressing business done, they
proceeded to execute a few commissions for Miss Jones, Miss Lowe, and
several other members of the party. Miss Hoyle had begged them to buy
a few yards of anything with which she might trim a large shady rush
hat she had brought with her, so the girls asked the postmistress to
show them some white ribbon. That elderly spinster, having first, with
considerable ingenuity, satisfied her curiosity as to the object for
which they required it, commenced a vigorous hunt among the
miscellaneous collection of boxes in her establishment.

"I know I have some," she soliloquized, "for it was only six weeks
ago I sold a yard and a half to Mrs. Cox, to finish a tea-cosy she was
making. Where can I have put it? No, this is lead-pencils and
india-rubber, and this, neuralgic powders and babies' comforters. It
might have got into the small wares, but I had that out only
yesterday. Why, here it is, after all, among the tapes and buttons!"

The girls soon found that shopping at Shipley possessed an immense
advantage over kindred expeditions in town. When there was only a
single article, no selection could be made; it was impossible to be
bewildered with too many fineries, and "This or nothing"