ook to the girls to-morrow. Won't they be
tickled--I mean pleased," corrected Genevieve, throwing a hasty glance
into Miss Jane's smiling eyes.

"I think they will," agreed that lady, pleasantly.

The girls were pleased, indeed, when Genevieve told of her plan and
showed the book the next day. But even so entrancing a subject as a
journal kept by each in turn could not hold their attention long; for
time was very short now, and in every household there were a
dozen-and-one last things to be done before the momentous fifth of July.
Even the Fourth, with its fun and its firecrackers had no charms for the
Happy Hexagons. Of so little consequence did they consider it, indeed,
that at last one small boy quite lost his patience.

"You won't fire my crackers, you won't take me to the picnic, you won't
play ball, you won't do anything," he complained to his absorbed sister.
"I shall be just glad when this old Texas thing is over!"

CHAPTER IV

ON THE WAY

All the girls' friends came to see them off at the station that fifth of
July.

"Mercy! it would never do to spring our Texas yell to-day," chuckled
Tilly, eyeing the assembled crowd; "but wouldn't I like to, though!"

"There's nothing dead about Sunbridge now, sure," laughed Genevieve.

"I should say not," declared Harold Day, who had begged the privilege of
going to Boston to see them aboard their train for Washington.

"For you see," he had argued, "it's to my state, after all, that you are
going, so I ought to be allowed to do the honors at this end of the trip
as long as I can't at the other!"

They were off at last, Mrs. Kennedy, Mr. Hartley, the six girls, and
Harold. But what a scrambling it was, and what a confusion of chatter,
laughter, "good-byes," and "write soons"!

In Boston there was a thirty-minute wait in the South Station before
their train was due to leave; but long before the thirty minutes were
over, the usually serene face of Mrs. Kennedy began to look flushed and
worried.

"Genevieve, my dear," she expostulated at last, "can't you keep those
flutterbudget girls somewhere near together? It will be time, soon, to
take our train, and only Cordelia is in sight. Not even Harold and your
father are here!"

Genevieve laughed soothingly.

"I know, Aunt Julia; but they'll be here, I'm sure. There's still lots
of time," she added, glancing proudly at her pretty new watch.

"But where are they all?"

"Tilly and Elsie have gone for some