s well
as some good china and old silver, buried in one of the great chests in
the attic.

However, nothing Aunt Jane could write could quench the girls' enthusiasm.
Already Lyddy and 'Phemie had written an advertisement for the city
papers, and five dollars of Lyddy's fast shrinking capital was to be
set aside for putting their desires before the newspaper-reading public.

They could feel then that their new venture was really launched.

CHAPTER XI

AT THE SCHOOLHOUSE

It was scarcely dusk on Saturday when Lucas drove into the side yard
at Hillcrest with the ponies hitched to a double-seated buckboard.
Entertainments begin early in the rural districts.

The ponies had been clipped and looked less like animated cowhide trunks
than they had when the Bray girls had first seen them and their young
master in Bridleburg.

"School teacher came along an' maw made Sairy go with him in his buggy,"
exclaimed Lucas, with a broad grin. "If Sairy don't ketch a feller 'fore
long, an' clamp to him, 'twon't be maw's fault."

Lucas was evidently much impressed by the appearance of Lyddy and 'Phemie
when they locked the side door and climbed into the buckboard. Because of
their mother's recent death the girls had dressed very quietly; but their
black frocks were now very shabby, it was coming warmer weather, and the
only dresses they owned which were fit to wear to an evening function of
any kind were those that they had worn "for best" the year previous.

But the two girls from the city had no idea they would create such a
sensation as they did when Lucas pulled in the ponies with a flourish
and stopped directly before the door of the schoolhouse.

The building was already lighted up and there was quite an assemblage of
young men and boys about the two front entrances. On the girls' porch,
too, a number of the feminine members of the Temperance Club were grouped,
and with them Sairy Pritchett.

Her own arrival with the schoolmaster had been an effective one and she
had waited with the other girls to welcome the newcomers from Hillcrest
Farm, and introduce them to her more particular friends.

But the Bray girls looked as though they were from another sphere. Not
that their frocks were so fanciful in either design or material; but there
was a style about them that made the finery of the other girls look both
cheap and tawdry.

"So _them_ stuck-up things air goin' to live 'round here; be they?"
whispered one rosy-c