“Got your car fare?” asked Laura.

“No.  But I could always walk,” returned Violet.  “And I’d almost rather do it than spend the night in the company of ghosts.”

“Well, you’d better decide in a hurry,” said Billie, with a chuckle, “because the longer you take to make up your mind, the farther you will have to walk back.”

“All right,” said Violet, suddenly goaded into an unusual firmness.  “You promise me this minute that you won’t say another word about ghosts until we get there, or I’ll get off at the very next station and walk back.”

“It’s ten miles,” Laura warned her.

“I don’t care if it’s twenty,” she returned stoutly, and laughingly the girls promised.

“It would be a crime to wear out those perfectly good shoes,” said Laura, looking at Violet’s trim suede footgear.  “Especially with prices going up.”

Billie groaned.

“I think I’ll have to try Violet’s trick,” she said.  “If anybody mentions the high cost of living to me while we’re away on this vacation, I’ll get out and walk home.  I don’t care if it’s a hundred miles.”

“Going up?” laughed Laura, but they promised just the same.  For underneath Billie’s lightness they knew that she was still puzzling her wits for some way to pay for that broken statue.

“Here comes a man with magazines,” said Laura.  “We’d better get a couple to pass the time away.  An all-day trip is pretty tiresome.  At least I’ve heard mother say so.”

They bought the magazines, but they might just as well not have done so, for when they reached Roland late that afternoon they had hardly peeped inside the covers.

The scenery was so beautiful and wild, the whole trip was so wonderfully novel that the time flew, and before they realized it they had reached the station next to Roland.

“Goodness, I didn’t think we were anywhere near there, yet!” cried Violet, as she began to gather up her things.  “I never knew a day to go so quickly in my life.  Billie, are these your candies?  You’d better not leave them on the seat.”

“Who said I was going to?” cried Billie, rescuing her sweets just as Laura was in the act of sitting on them.  “Here, there’s just room for them in the corner of my grip.  Mrs. Gilligan, have you got the trunk checks?”

“I hope so,” said the woman, opening her hand bag.

The girls watched her breathlessly and sighed with relief when she drew out the checks.

“All safe and sound,” she said.  “Now get on your hats and coats, girls.  We’re apt to have a wild scramble at the last if you aren’t ready beforehand.”

So, laughing and excited, the girls obeyed her, putting on their wraps hurriedly and laughing at Laura when she got her hat over one eye.

“Here, put it on straight,” cried Billie, performing that service for her friend.  “We don’t want to have our reputations ruined the minute we step on the platform.  Who ever heard of a perfect lady with her hat over one eye?”