, as she
and Shirley met Rosemary at the little corner table the latter had
secured and held for them. Rosemary had spread out the lunch Winnie
had put up for them, and Shirley was already beginning on a
sandwich.

"Oh, I like the girl who sits in front of me ever so much," returned
Rosemary, cutting an apple into quarters for Shirley. "Her name is
Elsie Stevens and they haven't lived in Eastshore long. Last year
she went to the Port Reading school. Elsie Mears sits in back of me;
she wasn't promoted. And Nina Edmonds is across the aisle."

"I don't think much of our teacher," announced Sarah, with
deplorable frankness. "She doesn't look very bright and she says she
is afraid of snakes."

"Well so am I," declared Rosemary. "I don't think any one is very
bright who isn't."

"That's because you don't know anything about snakes," said Sarah,
salting a boiled egg hurriedly. "Snakes are the best friends the
farmer has."

"My teacher's name is Miss Farmer," chirped Shirley sunnily. "And
we have pink and red and blue crayons to draw on the blackboard
with."

"Take another sandwich, darling," Rosemary urged her. "You're sure
you won't get tired this afternoon? You went home at noon every day
last year, you know."

"Yes, but I'm six now," Shirley reminded her sister. "Will we have
home work in our room, Rosemary?"

It was one of Shirley's ambitions to have "home work" to do, and she
longed to take a book home at night as Rosemary and Sarah did.

"I don't know--I shouldn't think so," answered Rosemary absently.
"Sarah, Nina Edmonds wears her hair pinned up and no hair-ribbon."

"Well she looks crazy anyway, so what difference does it make?" was
Sarah's comment on this news. "You can't go without a hair-ribbon,
Rosemary, because your hair will all be in your eyes. Hugh said Nina
was trying to be grown up and I guess she is."

But that night Rosemary spent half an hour before her mirror, trying
to coax her bobbed curls into a knot like Nina Edmonds'. Rosemary's
hair was growing very fast and she had promised Doctor Hugh not to
have it cut again. Just now it was an awkward length, but its
curliness redeemed even that. Nina's straight blond locks were
strained into a tortuous knot at the nape of her neck, for she, too,
had decided not to bob her hair again. It was the absence of
hair-ribbon that particularly appealed to Rosemary, for she had
"spells" as Winnie called them, of wishing to appear grown up. At
other time