ce's
furniture will be old, fallen-to-pieces stuff that nobody would give two
cents for."

"Goodness, what a wet blanket!" cried Laura reproachfully.

"Well, I'd rather be a wet blanket," retorted Billie desperately, "than
to plan for a lot of fun and then be disappointed. I--I've been
disappointed enough, goodness knows."

There was a quiver in Billie's brave little mouth and instinctively
Violet and Laura put an arm about her.

"We know what you mean," said Violet, soothingly. "And if you don't want
us to, we'll try not to hope too hard."

"Or if we do, we'll keep it to ourselves," added Laura, and Billie
hugged them fondly.

"I don't want you to stop hoping," she cried plaintively. "And I don't
want to be a wet blanket, either. I'm just afraid, that's all."

The girls swung back and forth in silence for a few minutes. Then it was
Laura who spoke.

"When are you going out to look over your property, Billie?"

"Why, I don't know," answered Billie thoughtfully. "As soon as we can
arrange it, I suppose. Dad says it's a full day's trip to get there, so
we would have to make some arrangement to stay over night."

"Couldn't you spend the night in the house?" suggested Violet.

"We might," Billie answered doubtfully. "Although I must say I wouldn't
like to--not the first night anyway. I'd want time to become acquainted
with the place first."

"If you will promise on your word of honor not to laugh at me," said
Violet after another short silence, "I'll tell you that I have
another idea."

"We won't laugh," they promised, and Billie added eagerly: "Tell us about
it, Violet. Even if we do laugh at your ideas at first, we generally end
by following them."

"But you said you wouldn't laugh this time," Violet reminded her, adding,
as the worst threat she could think of: "If you do I won't let you
follow out my idea."

"All right," said Billie. "As Chet would say--'shoot.'"

"Why, I was just thinking," said Violet, looking at them intently, "that
we haven't a plan in the world for spending our vacation--"

"Vi!" cried Laura joyfully, not waiting for her to finish, "you _have_
a good idea this time. You were going to say, why not spend our
vacation there?"

"At Cherry Corners?" asked Billie surprised, adding with a demure
glance: "Nobody seems to think of asking me about it. And it's my
property, you know."

"Gracious, isn't she stuck up?" cried Laura flippantly. "I'll have you
know you're not the only prop