e time. We can't
wait for them."

"How do you like our new plans?" asked Billie, looking up at him with
sparkling eyes.

"I think you ought to have all sorts of fun," he told her, adding
with a funny little smile: "But I can't quite make out yet where we
fellows come in."

"Oh, didn't I tell you?" she asked, surprised. "Why, you are going with
us!"

CHAPTER XII

GREAT PLANS

After permission for the outing was gained from all the parents concerned
everything was bustle and excitement. For a week the girls spent the
whole of every day at each other's houses, planning their vacation,
talking about the clothes they would need to take with them, and
generally enjoying themselves.

As the time drew near they could hardly contain their excitement, and the
boys, who had decided they would follow the girls some days later, were
almost as bad.

"I don't see why you don't come with us," Billie pouted one night, when
the entire crowd of young folks had assembled at her home. "It would be
lots more fun on the train if you boys were with us."

"But there is the tennis match we promised to play with the fellows of
the south end," Chet pointed out for perhaps the hundredth time. "We
couldn't back out of it at the last minute, you know; they'd think we
were afraid."

"Now how do you know," Violet pointed out, "but what we will all have
been eaten up by the ghosts by the time you get there?"

"Ghosts!" scoffed Ferdinand Stowing, who was to go with Chet and Teddy.
"I don't see where you girls get this ghost stuff. Just because a house
happens to be old doesn't say it's haunted."

"Gosh! listen to him," cried Chet indignantly. "Some one is always taking
the joy out of life."

"Say, you don't think it's haunted, do you?" asked Ferd, in surprise.

"Of course not," answered Chet, adding, with a chuckle: "But I have
my hopes."

"Well, so have I," spoke up Laura promptly. "If there isn't a family
ghost or two about the place, we just won't have any fun. What's the use
of going off into the wilderness to a spooky house if we're not going to
meet a ghost?"

"Well, you know I didn't promise any ghosts," said Billie, looking up
from a piece of fancy work she was embroidering. "If you are
disappointed, you needn't blame it on me, Laura, or you either, Chet."

"Well, I don't see why we shouldn't have a good time without ghosts," put
in Violet. "In fact, I don't think I'd particularly enjoy meeting
somebody's great-gr