“Just try it,” Laura hissed at them dramatically from the head of the stairs.  “I’d turn into another ghost and haunt you!”

“Oh, for goodness’ sake, leave her alone, Billie,” Violet entreated.  “We’ve got enough ghosts around here without Laura.  What’s that?”

“If you’re going to scare me again,” began Laura, but it was Billie this time who commanded silence.

“Hush, I did hear something queer,” she said, and all three listened intently.

It came again, a weird little noise like the brushing of wings against some hard object, and the girls scarcely dared to breathe.  Then out into the hot open attic fluttered a tiny little object with webbed wings and the body of a mouse.

“A bat!” cried Laura, sinking down weakly and shaking with hysterical laughter.  “Oh, girls, if I have to stay here another week I’ll just die of heart failure—­I know I will!”

CHAPTER XVIII

A FISH STORY

The days passed without further scares until the time finally came when the boys were to arrive.

During those days the girls roamed around the farm attached to Cherry Corners.  They found it for the most part a rocky place, with here and there dense patches of woods.  There was a brook and in this they saw some small fish darting about.

“Maybe the boys will want to go fishing when they come,” suggested Billie.

The cherry trees also interested the chums—­there were so many of them.  The late cherries were ripe, and they spent a day in picking them, donning overalls for that purpose.  Mrs. Gilligan took the fruit and made several delicious pies and also a number of tarts.

The place was certainly a lonesome one.  Only once did they see two men tramp by.  The men eyed the girls curiously, but tramped on without speaking.

“Certainly not very sociable,” was Violet’s comment.

At last came the time when the boys were to arrive.

The girls were in a fever of excitement and anticipation, for they knew that they would have just about twice as much fun with the boys as without them.

“We can go on picnics,” said Laura, putting on her hat over one eye as she had a habit of doing when unusually excited, “and long tramps in the woods, and—­oh, all sorts of things.”

“I wonder if that old wagon will ever come,” said Violet, looking anxiously down the road.  “If it doesn’t hurry we’ll be too late to meet the train.”

The boy who daily brought them provisions from the village had been commissioned to send the antiquated carriage after the girls so that they could get down to the village in time to meet the early train.  But the girls, with no confidence in the country lad’s memory, had been sure he would forget all about it.

“If he doesn’t come pretty soon, the boys will get off the train with no one to meet them,” Violet went on worrying.  “They won’t know where to go.”