“Either way would be wonderful!” beamed Ethel Blue, and the three girls promised themselves the delight of reporting Mrs. Emerson’s offer to the Club at its next meeting.

The homeward trip was made by a route quite different from the one by which the party reached Boston.  Grandfather proposed it at breakfast on the morning of the day on which they had intended to leave in the afternoon.

“Are you people very keen on this drive through the Park System to-day?” he asked.

The girls did not know what to say, but Mrs. Emerson scented a new idea and replied “not if you have something to suggest that we’d like better.”

“How would you like to trolley back to New York?”

“Trolley back to New York!” repeated the girls with little screeches of joy.  “All the way by trolley?  How long will it take?  I never heard of anything so delightful in all my life!”

After such a quick and satisfactory response Mr. Emerson did not need to lay his plan before them in any further detail.

“I see you’re ‘game,’ as Roger would say, for anything, so we’ll go that way if Mother agrees.”

Mrs. Emerson did agree and even went so far as to say that she had wanted to do that very thing for a long time.

“It’s lucky Grandfather insisted that we shouldn’t bring anything but small handbags,” said Ethel Brown.  “These little things we have won’t be any trouble at all, no matter how many times we have to change.”

They started in heavy inter-urban cars which rode as solidly as railroad cars and enabled them to be but very little tired at the end of the first “leg” of the journey.  The wide windows permitted views of the country and the girls ran from one side to the other of the closed cars, so that they should not miss anything of interest, and sat on the front seat of the open cars into which they changed later, so that they might have no one in front of them to obstruct their view.

They went out of the city straight westward through Brookline, through Chestnut Hill, where is one of the reservoirs from which the city is supplied; past Wellesley, where they saw the college buildings rising among the trees on the left.

The party reached Springfield at dusk and had time to take a walk after dinner.  They admired the elm-bordered streets and the comfortable houses, and they thought the Arsenal looked extremely peaceful outside in spite of its murderous activities within.

It was a deep sleep that visited them all that night.  A whole day in the open air with the gentle but continuous exercise provided by the car made them unconscious of their surroundings almost as soon as they touched their pillows.

CHAPTER XI

THE CONNECTICUT VALLEY

With a long and varied day ahead of them they were delighted to find the morning clear when they awoke.