, laughing and excited, the girls obeyed her, putting on their wraps
hurriedly and laughing at Laura when she got her hat over one eye.

"Here, put it on straight," cried Billie, performing that service for
her friend. "We don't want to have our reputations ruined the minute we
step on the platform. Who ever heard of a perfect lady with her hat
over one eye?"

"Well, if you don't like my company--" Laura began good-naturedly, as she
squinted at her distorted reflection in the little two-by-four mirror set
in the tiny space of wall between the windows. "Gracious, Billie, you
took it off of one eye to put it over the other. Do I look more like a
perfect lady with my hat over my right eye?"

Billie chuckled and pushed the hat over Laura's nose, at which Laura
would have protested vigorously and, if must be, forcefully, if there had
not been other passengers in the train besides themselves. As it was, she
had to be content with an indignant stare, which Billie, with twinkling
eyes, calmly turned her back upon.

"Roland! Roland!" called the conductor in stentorian tones, and with
little squeals of excitement the girls found their hand baggage, gave one
last little pat to their hats, and started toward the door.

"You go first, Mrs. Gilligan," cried Violet, pushing that woman
before her.

"I wonder if Vi expects the ghosts to meet us at the station?" chuckled
Laura in Billie's ear. "She reminds me of a relative of ours who always
pushes her escort in front of her when she meets a strange dog."

Billie giggled, caught her grip on the arm of one of the seats, rescued
it again, and finally made her way with the others to the platform.

It was a rather old and broken-down platform, just as Roland proved to be
a rather old and broken-down place, and the girls stood on it ruefully as
they watched the train rumble off in the distance.

"Now we're in for it," said Billie, her eyes taking in a
disconsolate-looking store or two and a drooping post-office. "I wonder
if this is what they call the village?"

"Well, we're not going to live here," said Mrs. Gilligan briskly. "And
you can't expect to find a thriving town away off a hundred miles from
nowhere. Come on, let's see if we can find some sort of a wagon to take
us and our belongings to Cherry Corners. I don't suppose," she added, as
they crossed the street toward a building a little more dilapidated than
the rest that had the words Livery Stable painted on a blurred sign