want to
live!"

Fortunately at that minute the train really did stop at a small station
and the Merrills got off and looked around. It didn't take long to explore
into the woods far enough to find that they had come to the very place
they were looking for--a spot not too far from the city for Mr. Merrill's
daily trip and yet wild enough to give the girls some real woods. The
girls picked flowers as they explored and had such a happy time that it
was hard work to persuade them to go back to the city when the twilight
came. But they had found the very place!

Three weeks later Mr. Merrill bought a lot in the heart of the woods, and
the summer home was no longer a mere dream--it was to be really truly.

"Now," announced Alice, "we'll draw the kind of a house we want. I love to
draw plans of a house!" She cleared off the dining table, sharpened
pencils, brought two tablets and insisted that everybody come out and
help.

And just then the door bell rang.

"Telegram for Merrill!" shouted a voice through the tube and Mary Jane
pressed the buzzer in a hurry--a telegram usually meant something
exciting.

It was addressed to Mrs. Merrill and said, "Have all tickets and hotel
reservations. You and the girls must come." And it was signed by Mrs.
Merrill's brother.

"If that isn't just like a college boy!" laughed Mrs. Merrill. "For weeks
he doesn't answer a letter and then he telegraphs! Girls," she added,
"let's go! Wouldn't you like to go to Boston and see the college and the
ocean and the White Mountains--and--everything?"

"Oh, mother, _really_?" exclaimed Mary Jane. (She felt as though she must
be dreaming, things were happening so fast!)

"But what about the summer home?" asked Alice.

"Don't you worry about the summer home," Mr. Merrill assured her, "we'll
have that summer home just the same. You girls take your trip east. You
won't be gone more than a couple of weeks--and what are two weeks out of a
whole summer? And before you go, we'll get the shack all planned and when
you come back we'll move out."

"Goody! Goody! Goody!" cried Mary Jane happily, "then I can see Uncle Hal
and ride on the train and dig a garden and _everything_!"

And if you want to hear all about Mary Jane's beautiful trip to Boston and
the White Mountains, the fun she had sight-seeing and the jolly party on
"Class Day," you must read--

"MARY JANE IN NEW ENGLAND"

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