"It will probably rain all the time and you'll tramp along like a row of drowned rats," suggested Beatrice.
"It won't do anything of the sort. I believe we're going to have a fine mild spell and it will be just glorious. I'm taking my 'Brownie,' so there'll be some snapshots to show we've been enjoying ourselves," retorted Nora briskly. "You stay-at-homes will be sorry for yourselves when you hear our adventures!"
To allow the weather ample chance of improvement, and perhaps also to give Miss Strong time to rest, the excursion was fixed for the last week of the holidays. One morning in mid-April, therefore, found teacher and pupils meeting together on the platform of Grovebury station to catch the 9.25 train to Carford. They wore jerseys and their school hats, and they carried their luggage according to their individual ideas of convenience. Linda wore her little brother's satchel slung over her back. Nora had borrowed a knapsack, Kitty preferred a parcel, Verity packed her possessions in a string bag, and Bess carried a neat dispatch-case.
"I'd a ripping idea for mine, but it wouldn't work," declared Ingred. "I meant to tie my parcel to a balloon and then just lead it along by a string. But I couldn't get a proper gas balloon for the business, and that's what you ought to have."
"And suppose the wind were to blow it away from you, what then?" inquired Miss Strong.
"I suppose I should have to cable it round my waist."
"Then you might be whisked up with it, and we should see you sailing off into the clouds in a kind of aeroplane holiday instead of a walking tour! I don't think we can patent your balloon dodge yet."
"What I want," said Kitty, "is a sort of child's light mail-cart arrangement that I could wheel along. It's what Mother always says she needs for shopping—a parcel-holder on wheels. Why doesn't somebody invent one? He—or she (I'm sure it would be a she)—would make a fortune."
"We might have borrowed a perambulator," said Belle, quite seriously, "and have packed all our luggage into it."
"Oh, I dare say! And who would have wheeled it?"