There was no doubt that they were her companions, however, for she asked the conductor to reverse a seat, and with Sarah beside her, and the eager, restless twins opposite, she was as oblivious of the interested stares of the passengers as though she were in her own class-room at Spring Grove. The twins were wild with delight at the journey. Here was another adventure, more exciting than running away from Aunt Mena, or carrying a gun to school. Meanwhile, with an hour's start, and behind Betty, the fast little mare, Uncle Daniel and Jacob Kalb were just finishing the twelve-mile journey to the county seat. CHAPTER VI THE ORPHANS' COURT The curious eyes which watched Miss Miflin and the children on the train were multiplied tenfold when they found themselves on the streets of the county seat. Miss Miflin was pretty enough to attract attention anywhere, but she had never before been so frankly stared at. She was well aware that the children in their striped shawls and little sunbonnets and gray home-knit stockings looked strange in a town where for twenty years little girls had been wearing coats and hats. "Is it a show?" she heard one impertinent boy ask another. "See here, once," a man exclaimed. "That's the way the little girls looked when I was a boy." Miss Miflin was the only member of her party who was at all disturbed by the interested residents of the county seat. The tired look was gone from Sarah's face, her eyes sparkled; for a few minutes, in her delight over the strange sights, she forgot her anxiety and fear. Here were the wonderful "electricity cars," which frightened the twins nearly out of their wits. "Where are then the horses?" they demanded together. "What makes it go? Will it come after us?" The twins held each other tightly by the hand, their desire to run ahead and their fear of becoming separated from Miss Miflin making their gait very uncertain. Once she and Sarah almost stumbled over them, when they stopped short to contemplate the wonders of the tall Powers Building, in course of erection on the other side of the street. Miss Miflin was not sorry when the gray walls of the court house appeared before them. She would be glad to get her charges safely within doors. The twins, however, had stopped again. They had loosened their grasp on each other, and were standing with clasped hands and rapturous gaze. "What is it?" asked Miss Miflin. Then she followed their glance to a little peanut and candy stand near by. "Peanuts!" said Louisa Ellen rapturously. "Candy!" said Ellen Louisa. There was a shocked "Ach, aren't you ashamed!" from Sarah, and a laugh from Miss Miflin. "Wait till we go home," she said. Then, together, she and Sarah pushed open the heavy door of the court house.