However, they did succeed at last in getting themselves safely on the station platform. It was a pretty station, and this being their first glimpse of the place where they were going to spend so much time, they looked about them with interest.
Molata was the nearest town to Three Towers Hall and Boxton Military Academy. Both of these schools were situated on Lake Molata, for which the town had been named. Most of the inhabitants of Molata were wealthy, and the estates in and about the town were magnificent. There was also a large hotel, filled during the summer season.
Even the station was in keeping with the general air of prosperity. In the minute the girls had to look about them, they saw a stone-built waiting room with a red-tiled roof. A beautiful green velvety lawn completely surrounded the station on three sides, while on one side a beautiful fountain sent its sparkling spray high into the clear air. And further back through the trees they caught glimpses of beautiful estates.
They found themselves being hustled toward the other end of the station where two conveyances, one from Three Towers Hall and the other from Boxton Military Academy, were waiting to take the girls and boys to their destination.
Two attendants tended to the trunks and deposited the luggage inside the cabs, while the girls and boys said excited good-byes to each other on the platform.
"We'll be only a little over a mile away from you," Chet called out. "And when we get an afternoon off we'll row down the lake and get you girls."
"Oh, won't that be fun!" cried Vi, her eyes dancing. "I'm just crazy to get out on the lake."
"Goodness, we haven't even seen it yet," Laura reminded her.
"Yes, and if we're going to," Billie added, "I guess we'd better get started. Come on, girls. Everybody's in but us. Good-bye, Chet! Good-bye, Ferd and Teddy! Please be good and don't get sent home the first week—we wouldn't have anybody to give us that row, you know. Good-bye—good-bye——"
Laura and Vi had already clambered into the long, car-like machine with Three Towers Hall painted in gold letters on the outside and were impatiently commanding Billie to follow them.