"I'm so glad," said Bettie. "I just love a baby."

Two men unpacked the Milligans' furniture in the Milligans' front yard, and each load seemed more interesting than the one before it. It was such fun to guess what the big, clumsy parcels contained, particularly when the contents proved to be quite different from what the girls expected.

"Somehow, I don't think they're going to be very nice people," said Mabel. "I b'lieve we're going to be disappointed in 'em."

"Why, Mabel," objected Jean, "we don't know a thing about them yet."

"Yes, I do too. Their things--look--they don't look _ladylike_."

"Oh, Mabel," laughed Marjory, "you're so funny."

"Perhaps," offered Jean, "the Milligans are poor and the children have spoiled things."

"No," insisted Mabel. "They've got some of the newest and shiningest furniture I ever saw, but I b'lieve it's imitation."

"Oh, Mabel," laughed Jean, "I hope you won't watch the loads when _I_ move. For a girl that's slept for three weeks on an imitation pillow, you're pretty critical."

Presently the Milligans themselves arrived. Mabel happened to be counting the buds on the poppy plants when they came.

"Girls!" she cried, rushing into the cottage with the news. "They've come. I saw them all. There's a Mr. Milligan, a Mrs. Milligan, a girl, a boy, a baby, and a dog. The girl's the oldest. She's just about my size--I mean height--and she has straight, light hair. The baby walks, and none of them are so very good-looking."

It did not take the newcomers long to discover that their next-door neighbors were four little girls. Mrs. Milligan found it out that very afternoon when she went to the back door to borrow tea. Bettie explained, very politely, that Dandelion Cottage was only a playhouse, and that their tea-caddy contained nothing but glass beads. When Mrs.

Milligan returned to her own house, she told her own family about it.

"You might as well run over and play with them, Laura," she said. "Take the baby with you, too. He's a dreadful nuisance under my feet. That'll be a real nice place for you both to play all summer."

The girls received their visitors pleasantly; almost, indeed, with enthusiasm; but after a very few moments, they began to eye the baby with apprehension. He refused to make friends with them but wandered about rather lawlessly and handled their treasures roughly. Laura paid no attention to him but talked to the girls. She seemed a bright girl and not at all bashful, and she used a great many slang phrases that sounded new and, it must be confessed, rather attractive to the girls.

"Oh, land, yes," she said, "we came here from Chicago where we had all kinds of money, and clothes to burn--we lived in a beautiful flat. Pa just came here to oblige Mr. Williams--he's going to clerk in Williams's store. Come over and see me--we'll be real friendly and have lots of good times together--I can put you up to lots of dodges. Say, this is a dandy place to play in--I'm coming over often."

Jean looked in silence at Bettie, Bettie at Mabel, and Mabel at Marjory.

Surely such an outburst of cordiality deserved a fitting response, but no one seemed to be able to make it.

"Do," said Jean, finally, but rather feebly, "we'd be pleased to have you."

Except for a few lively but good-natured squabbles between Marjory, who was something of a tease, and Mabel, who was Marjory's favorite victim, the little mistresses of Dandelion Cottage had always played together in perfect harmony; but with the coming of the Milligans everything was changed.

To start with, between the Milligan baby and the Milligan dog, the girls knew no peace. Mrs. Milligan was right when she said that the baby was a nuisance, for it would have been hard to find a more troublesome three-year-old. He pulled down everything he could reach, broke the girls' best dishes, wiped their precious petunia and the geraniums completely out of existence, and roared with a deep bass voice if anyone attempted to interfere with him. The dog carried mud into the neat little cottage, scratched up the garden, and growled if the girls tried to drive him out.

"Well," said Mabel, disconsolately, in one of the rare moments when the girls were alone, "I _could_ stand the baby and the dog. But I _can't_ stand Laura!"

"Laura certainly likes to boss," said Bettie, who looked pale and worried. "I don't just see what we're going to do about it. I try to be nice to her, but I _can't_ like her. Mother says we must be polite to her, but I don't believe Mother knows just what a queer girl she is--you see she's always as quiet as can be when there are grown people around."

"Yes," agreed Mabel, "her company manners are so much properer than mine that Mother says she wishes I were more like her."

"Well," said Marjory, uncompromisingly, "I'm mighty glad you're not.

Your manners aren't particularly good, but you haven't two sets. I think Laura's the most disagreeable girl I ever knew. Just as she fools you into almost liking her, she turns around and scratches you."

"Perhaps," said Jean, "if her people were nicer--By the way, Mother says that after this we must keep the windows shut while Mr. Milligan is splitting wood in his back yard so we can't hear the awful things he says, and that if we hear Mr. and Mrs. Milligan quarreling again we mustn't listen."

"Listen!" exclaimed Mabel. "We don't _need_ to listen. Their voices keep getting louder and louder until it seems as if they were right in this house."

"Of course," said Marjory, "it can't be pleasant for Laura at home, but, dear me, it isn't pleasant for _us_ with her over here."

Badly-brought-up Laura was certainly not a pleasant playmate. She wanted to lead in everything and was amiable only when she was having her own way. She was not satisfied with the way the cottage was arranged but rearranged it to suit herself. She told the girls that their garments were countrified, and laughed scornfully at Bettie's boyish frocks and heavy shoes. She ridiculed rotund Mabel for being fat, and said that Marjory's nose turned up and that Jean's rather large mouth was a good opening for a young dentist. Before the first week was fairly over, the four girls--who had lived so happily before her arrival--were grieved, indignant, or downright angry three-fourths of the time.

Laura had one habit that annoyed the girls excessively, although at first they had found it rather amusing. Later, however, owing perhaps to a certain rasping quality in Laura's voice, it grew very tiresome. She transposed the initials of their names. For instance, Bettie Tucker became Tettie Bucker, Jeanie Mapes became Meanie Japes, while Mabel became Babel Mennett. It was particularly distressing to have Laura speak familiarly in her sharp, half-scornful tones, of their dear, departed Miss Blossom, whose name was Gertrude, as Bertie Glossom. Mr.

Peter Black, of course, became Beter Plack, and Mrs. Bartholomew Crane was Mrs. Cartholomew Brane, to lawless young Laura.

"I don't think it's exactly respectful to do that to grown-up people's names," protested Bettie, one day.

"Pooh!" said Laura. "Mrs. Cartholomew Brane looks just like an old washtub, she's so fat--who'd be respectful to a washtub? There goes Toctor Ducker, Tettie Bucker. Huh! I'd hate to be a parson's daughter--they're always as poor as church mice. What did you say your mother's first name is?"

"I didn't say and I'm not going to," returned Bettie.

"Well, anyhow, her bonnet went out of style four years ago. I should think the parish'd take up a subscription and get her a new one."

"I wish, Laura," said exasperated Jean, another day, "that you wouldn't meddle with our things. This bedroom is mine and Bettie's, and the other one is Mabel's and Marjory's. We wouldn't _think_ of looking into each other's private treasure boxes. I've seen you open mine half a dozen times this week. The things are all keepsakes and I'd rather not have them handled."

"Huh! I guess I'll handle 'em if I want to. My mother can't keep me out of her bureau drawers, and I don't think you're so very much smarter."

A day or two later, the girls of Dandelion Cottage were invited to a party in another portion of the town. The invitations were left at their own cottage door and the delighted girls began at once to make plans for the party.

"Let's carry our new handkerchiefs," suggested Jean, going to her treasure box. "I believe I'll take mine home with me--I dreamed last night that the cottage was on fire and that mine got burned. Besides, I'll have to get dressed at home for the party and it would be handier to have it there."

"Guess I will, too," said Bettie.

"Great idea," said Marjory, taking her own box from its shelf. "I never should have thought of anything so bright. Let's all write to Miss Blossom and tell her that we carried our--Why! mine isn't in my box!"

"Neither is mine," cried Mabel, who had turned quite pale at the discovery. "It was there this morning. Girls, did any of you touch our handkerchiefs?"

"Of course we didn't," said Jean. "See, here's mine with 'J' on it, and there are no others in my box."

"Of course not," echoed Laura.

"Mine's here, all right," said Bettie, who had been struggling with her box, which opened hard. "Are you sure you left them in your boxes?"

"Certain sure," replied Mabel. "I saw it this morning."

"So did I see mine," asserted Marjory. "After I'd shown it to Aunty Jane I brought it back to put in my treasure box."

"Laura," asked Jean, "was Marjory's handkerchief in her box when you looked in it this morning? I heard the cover make that funny little clicking noise that it always makes, and just a minute afterward you came out of her room."

"I--I don't know," stammered Laura. "I didn't see it--I never touched her old box. If you say I did, I'll go right home and tell my mother you called me a thief. I'm going now, anyway."

The girls were in the dining-room just outside of the back bedroom door. As Laura was brushing past Jean, the opening of the new girl's blouse caught in such a fashion on the corner of the sideboard that the garment, which fastened in front, came unbuttoned from top to bottom.

From its bulging front dropped Bettie's bead chain, various articles of doll's clothing, and the two missing handkerchiefs.