"Are you going all the way home with us?" Edna asked Ben as they left the boat at the .  
"Yes, Mr. Ramsey thinks he should stay in New York for the day, and has handed you over to my tender mercies, so if we can get a good train you will be at home in a very few hours."
 
"Now that we are so near I'm just crazy to get there," said Dorothy. "Will they know exactly when we are coming, Ben?"
 
"We can easily let them know either by telephone or telegraph."
 
"I think I'd rather surprise them, wouldn't you, Edna?"
 
"It won't be such a big surprise, for mother knows we are coming some time to-day."
 
"Then there is no use in sending word ahead," Dorothy. "They will be looking for us anyway."
 
Just here Mr. Ramsey came up. "Well, young ladies," he said, "so you are going to leave me. I think this young man can be trusted to take care of you the rest of the way, and I hope as soon as 175Jennie gets back you will come in to see her. We have all enjoyed having you with us, and I hope you will feel at home in our house always."
 
The little girls thanked him and said they had had a very happy time and wouldn't he tell Jennie to come out to see them as soon as she returned. So they parted, and then there was the rush of getting to the train and the pleasant sense of knowing this was the last stage of their journey. Ben whiled away the time by asking them ridiculous which made them so that more than one fellow traveller smiled in sympathy with their merry laughs.
 
The more the conundrums the better the children liked them, and those that Ben made up as they went along pleased them best of all. "When is a fence not a fence?" asked Ben and the answer was, "when it's an advertisement." "What would you do if company came and there were no more tea in the teapot?" was the next question.
 
"I'd send out for more tea," responded Dorothy.
 
"What would you do, Ande?"
 
"I don't know. What would you?"
 
"I'd add hot water and serve just as the sign tells you to do."
 
"But that means for soup."
 
"Well, but it answers just as well for tea. Now, here is another one for you. Suppose you couldn't get tea, what would you do?
 
"I'd go without."
 
"I wouldn't; I'd use Horlick's malted milk."
 
"Oh, that is the sign just over there, isn't it? Too late, Dorothy, we've passed it."
 
"Make up another, Ben," urged Dorothy.
 
"Well, here goes. If I wanted to be sure of an intellectual meal, what would I do?"
 
They guessed several things, but Ben shook his head at each answer. "I think it is a very hard one," declared Edna. "Intellectual is a hard word anyhow. You will have to tell us, Ben."
 
"Give it up?"
 
"Yes, I do; don't you, Dorrie?"
 
"Yes, it is too hard for me."
 
"Then this is the answer: I'd put my roasts through a course of Browning. I think that's pretty good myself. I shall have to salt it down to ask your elders. I'll give you an easy one now. Why do they call the man who drives the an engineer?"
 
Edna finally guessed this. "Because he is near the engine," she said.
 
"Good girl; go up head," cried Ben. "You seem to be improving. Now each of you try to make up a limerick and I'll do the same."
 
"Oh, we can't do that," objected Dorothy.
 
"Yes, you can if you try. I will give you a model.
 
There was a young person named Dorrie
Who said to her comrade, 'I'm sorry
I came on the train,
But I'll do it again
When Ben isn't with us to worry.'"
The girls laughed at this and set themselves to work to produce something of the same kind. After many attempts Edna gave this:
 
"There was a young man named Benny
Who said, 'Please give me a penny.
Some peanuts I'll buy
All nice and dry,'
But he didn't give us children any."
"That's not bad at all," said Ben laughing. "Did you mean that for a hint, and do you think I'd buy peanuts and keep them all to myself?"
 
"Oh, no." Edna was shocked that he should think she really intended a hint. "I just had to make up something and that was the best I could do."
 
"Oh, dear, I can't get my last line," complained Dorothy. "I've tried and tried and I can't find a rhyme for Barker and Parker. This as far as I can get:
 
There was a young man named Barker
Who stayed at the Hotel Parker
And ate lots of rolls
And drank from the bowls—
I had to say bowls to make it rhyme, though I really meant cups, and there I am stuck."
 
Here Ben came to her rescue.
 
 
"And drank from the bowls
Until his grew darker,"
he added to the amusement of the girls.
 
They kept up the limericks for some time, though Dorothy found it such hard work that she finally refused to try any more, and Ben looking at his watch decided it was time to go into the dining-car for dinner. This was a new experience and made a pleasant break in the monotony of the journey. By the time the meal was finished they were so near their own station that the rest of the way seemed nothing at all. At the station they had to change cars or else make the trip by the .
 
"Which shall we do?" asked Ben.
 
"Which will get us there first?" asked Edna.
 
"Let me see." Ben pulled out a time table. "There will be a train in half an hour. It is a pretty good one, and I think will get us there about five minutes ahead of the trolley. It's a choice between sitting in the station or going ahead on the trolley."
 
"Which would you rather do?" Dorothy asked him.
 
"I think perhaps the train will be better on account of the baggage which can go right through with us." So they sat down to wait till their train should be called and found enough to amuse them in watching the people go and come.
 
"It does look so natural," remarked Dorothy, when the train began to move. "Just think, Edna, 179in a few days we shall be starting to school again, and be coming this way every day."
 
"And we shall be seeing Uncle Justus and Aunt Elizabeth and all the girls. I wonder if we shall have as good times at the G. R. Club as we did last year. We must go to see Margaret and Nettie very soon, Dorothy, for we shall have such heaps to tell them."
 
"We shall want to tell our own families first."
 
"Oh, of course. I wonder if Uncle Justus is still with the others on the . I never thought to ask Ben." She leaned over to speak to her cousin who was sitting directly in front and learned that Mr. Horner had left the yacht at Portland and had come home by rail from that city.
 
"The old chap had a good time while he was with us," Ben told her, "and I think it limbered him up a lot."
 
"Why, was he from like Cap'n Si?" asked Edna innocently.
 
Ben laughed. "No, he was stiff from eating too many ramrods."
 
Edna knew this wasn't true, but she didn't ask any more questions just then. The train was nearing the familiar station where they were to get off. She wondered if Celia and the boys, or Celia and Agnes would be there to meet them. She thought it very likely, as the family must know they would arrive about this time.
 
But as the train moved off there was no sign of any of their friends. "They didn't come after all," said Edna to Dorothy. "I wonder if they know Ben is with us?"
 
"Why, how could they know. Did you tell them on the post-card you wrote from Boston, or the one you sent Celia from ?"
 
"No. Did you say anything about it?"
 
"Not a word."
 
"Then that will be a sort of surprise, for even if they expect us they won't expect Ben."
 
It was not a very long walk from the station to the home of either little girl, though it had appeared long enough to Edna one evening the winter before when she had been caught in a snow-storm.
 
"I won't stop," said Dorothy, when they had reached Edna's gate. "I can scarcely wait to see mother."
 
"I feel just that way," said Edna. "Will you come over this evening?"
 
"Maybe. I can't promise, for I shall hate to leave them all. You come over."
 
"But I shan't want to leave them all either. I we'd better wait till to-morrow."
 
"All right. Good-bye till then." And Dorothy started off at a run while Edna and Ben turned in at the gate.
 
How quiet it seemed! No one was on the , and the sound of their voices did not bring anyone down from upstairs. "I wonder where they all are. I'll go up very softly and s'prise them," whispered Edna to Ben, "and in a little while you come up and have another s'prise." Ben nodded understandingly and Edna crept softly up the stairs. There was no sound of voices anywhere. "They must all be asleep," the child murmured, but as it was just about lunch time, that seemed to be rather an unusual state of things. She went from room to room. Not ............