The great train thundered into the station. The girls ran wildly looking for a third-class carriage. At last they found one and tumbled into it; the door was slammed, and they were off. Kathleen wondered—she was not sure, but she wondered—if she really did see, or if it was only a dream, a pair of brown eyes looking at her from the station, and the severe young figure and shocked face of Alice Tennant.
"It must have been a dream; she could not have guessed that I was going to the station. What a good thing she didn't meet Mrs. Hopkins!" thought Kathleen. Then she turned to her companions—to the six girls who had decided to brave all the terrors of their expedition. They were Susy Hopkins, Kate Rourke, Clara Sawyer, Rosy Myers, Janey Ford, and Mary Wilkins.
Kathleen sat quite still for a minute until she had recovered her breath. She looked around her. To her relief, she saw that they were alone. There was no one else in the compartment.
"Now then," she said, "how is it that all the others have funked it?"
"There has been so much muttering and whispering and suspecting going on during the whole livelong day that they were positively afraid," said Susy. "Indeed, if it hadn't been for you, Kathleen, I doubt if any of us would have come."
"Well, girls, we can't help it," said Kathleen. "If the rest are so timid, there's more fun for us; isn't that so?"
She looked round at her companions.
"I mean to enjoy myself," said Kate Rourke. "I have been to a theater twice before. Once I went with my grandfather, and another time with an uncle from Australia. I didn't go to the pit when I went with uncle. He took me to a grand stall, and we rubbed up against the nobility, I can tell you."
It suddenly occurred to Kathleen that Kate Rourke was rather a vulgar girl. She drew a little nearer to her, however, and fixed her very bright eyes on the girl's face."
"But we needn't go to the pit, need we?" she said. "I meant to pay for forty. If there are only six, why shouldn't