was laughing with her handkerchief to her lips. But Miss
Jane Chick--Miss Jane Chick was sitting erect, her eyes plainly
horrified, her hands clapped to her ears.

"Children, children!" she gasped, as soon as there was a chance for her
voice to be heard. "You don't mean to say that you did _that_--at a
public railroad station!"

Cordelia looked distressed. The other girls bit their lips and lifted
their chins just a little: they did not like to be called "children."

"But, Miss Chick," stammered Cordelia, "we didn't think--that is, we
wanted to do something to welcome Genevieve, and--and--" Cordelia
stopped, and swallowed chokingly.

"But to shout like that," protested Miss Chick. "You--_young ladies_!"

The girls bit their lips still harder and lifted their chins still
higher: they were not quite sure whether they more disliked to be
"children" or "young ladies"--in that tone of voice.

"Oh, but Miss Jane," argued Genevieve, "you know Sunbridge station is
just dead, simply dead at three o'clock in the afternoon. Nobody ever
comes on that train, hardly, and there wasn't a soul around but that
sleepy Mr. Jones and the station men, and that old Mrs. Palmer. And you
know _she_ wouldn't hear a gun go off right under her nose."

"Genevieve, my dear!" murmured Mrs. Kennedy--but her eyes were
twinkling.

Cordelia still looked troubled.

"I know, Genevieve," she frowned anxiously, "but I never thought of it
that way--what others would think. Maybe we ought not to have done it,
after all. But I'm sure we didn't mean any harm."

Promptly, now, Mrs. Kennedy came to the rescue.

"Of course you did not, dear child," she said, smiling into Cordelia's
troubled eyes; "and it was very sweet and lovely of you girls to think
of giving Genevieve such a pretty welcome. Oh, of course," she added
with a whimsical glance at her sister, "we shouldn't exactly advise you
to make a practice of welcoming everybody home in that somewhat
startling fashion. That really wouldn't do, you know. Sunbridge station
might not be quite so dead next time," she finished, meeting Genevieve's
grateful eyes.

* * * * *

"That really was dear of you, Aunt Julia," confided Genevieve some time
later, after the girls had gone, and when she and Mrs. Kennedy were
alone together. (Miss Jane had gone up-stairs.) "Only think of the pains
they took--to get themselves up to look so pretty, besides learning to
give that yell so