t you put it on straight?" she demanded
indignantly, pushing the hat back where it belonged. "What do you think
you're doing anyway?"

A little anger was the best thing that could have come to Billie. It was
about the only thing in the world that would have gotten her wide awake
just then. And it was very necessary that she should be wide awake, for
the train was just drawing into the station where they were to get off to
take the boat to Lighthouse Island.

She took the bag thrust into her hands by Laura, and the girls hurried
out into the aisle that was crowded with people. A minute more, and they
found themselves on a platform down which people hurried and porters
rolled their baggage trucks and where every one seemed intent upon making
as much noise as possible.

Billie and Laura and Vi felt very much bewildered, for they had never
done any traveling except in the company of some older person; but with a
confidence that surprised them, Connie took command of the situation. For
Connie had traveled this route several times, and everything about it was
familiar to her.

"Give me your trunk checks," she ordered, adding, as the girls obediently
fumbled in their pocketbooks: "We'll have to hustle if we want to get our
trunks straightened out and get on board ourselves before the boat
starts. What's the matter, Vi, you haven't lost your check, have you?"

For one terrible minute Vi had been afraid she had done just this, but
now, with a sigh of relief, she produced the check and handed it over to
Connie.

"My, but that was a narrow escape," she murmured, as they hurried down
the crowded platform.

The boat that plied from the mainland to Lighthouse Island and one or two
more small islands scattered about near the coast was a small but tidy
little vessel that was really capable of better speed than most people
gave her credit for. She was painted a sort of dingy white, and large
black letters along her bow proclaimed her to be none other than the
_Mary Ann_.

And now as the girls, with several other passengers, stepped on board and
felt the cool breeze upon their faces they breathed deep of the salty air
and gazed wonderingly out over the majestic ocean rolling on and on in
unbroken swells toward the distant horizon.

Gone was all the fatigue of the long train ride. They forgot that their
lungs were full of soft coal dirt, that their hands were grimy, and their
faces, too. They were completely under the spell of