iscomforts of the trip
patiently, and laughing when Vera fumed.

"Well, I know, if I were a man," said Vera, "I could make some kind of
an engine that would go like lightning, and have neither smoke nor
cinders. I told Rob that, and he said, 'Oh, don't let it stop you
because you're not a man. Just go ahead, Pussy Weather-vane, and plan
it. The companies won't refuse to use it because it wasn't invented by a
man!'

"Now, isn't that just like a boy? What time do I have to do things like
that? Doesn't he know that I have lessons, and all sorts of things that
hinder me?"

"Why do you girls laugh at everything I say, just as Rob does?" she
concluded, looking in surprise, from one merry face to the other.

"Oh, but Vera, you are funny when you sputter," said Elf.

"I s'pose I am," agreed Vera, "and I don't much care. I'm sure I'd
rather make you laugh, than make you look sober."

"Look! Look!" cried Dorothy.

"We're almost to Glenmore!"

"Not yet," said Vera.

"Oh, but Dorothy is right," said Nancy, "for look there where the river
glistens in the sun."

"And see that big Club House right over there," Dorothy said, pointing
toward a handsome building of which the town of Glenmore was justly
proud.

"But it doesn't seem quite like--"

Vera's remark was interrupted by the trainman, who opened the door and
shouted, "Glenmore! Glenmore!"

"I guess it did look like it," Vera said, as she sprang out on the
platform, followed by her three laughing companions. Marcus was waiting
for them.

"Yo'-all git in, an' we'll git dar as quick as we kin. Mis' Marvin, she
say all the other pupils is arriv, an' she hopes you fo' will be some
prompt."

"We came as soon as the train would bring us," said Elf.

"But dat train am an hour later dan de time-table say."

"Do you believe that?" Elf asked of the others, as they rode along.

"They must have changed the time-table," Nancy said.

Marcus turned his head to shout:

"No, miss, no. Nobody doesn't neber chane nuffin' in Glenmore!"

Mrs. Marvin was on the porch, as the carriage turned in at the gateway,
and she stepped forward to greet them as they sprang out on the walk.

"I was beginning to wonder what had detained you, when I was delighted
to see the carriage coming around the bend of the road. You are just in
time to go to your rooms and 'freshen up' a bit before dinner, and--
Why, Arabella Correyville! What does this mean?"

A drenched and bedraggled figure was