four years are over.

"In the sophomore year the hardest task is keeping the weeds out, and
during the junior and senior years the difficulty will be to keep the
ground in the highest state of cultivation. It will be easier to neglect
one's garden, then, because one will have grown so used to the things
one has planted that one will forget to tend them and put off stirring
up the soil around them and watering them. I'm going to think a little
each day while I'm home this summer about my garden and keep it fresh
and green."

Grace laid the gown she had been folding in the trunk and looked
earnestly at Anne as she finished her long speech.

"What a nice idea!" exclaimed Anne warmly. "I think I shall have to
begin gardening, too."

"Your garden has always been in a flourishing condition from the first,"
laughed Grace. "The chief trouble with mine seems to be the number of
strange weeds that spring up--nettles that I never planted, but that
sting just as sharply, nevertheless. It hurts me to go home with the
knowledge that there are two girls here who don't like me. I know I
ought not to care, for I have nothing to regret as far as my own conduct
is concerned, but still I'd like to leave Overton for the summer without
one shadow in my path."

"Perhaps, when certain girls come back in the fall they will be on their
good behavior."

"Perhaps," repeated Grace sceptically.

The entrance into the room of Elfreda and Miriam, who had been out
shopping, brought the little heart talk to an abrupt close.

"We've a new kind of cakes," exulted Miriam. "They are three stories
high and each story is a different color. They have icing half an inch
thick and an English walnut on top. All for the small sum of five cents,
too."

"We bought a dozen," declared Elfreda, "and now I'm going out to buy ice
cream. This packing business calls for plenty of refreshment to keep
one's energy up to the mark. I've thought of a lovely plan to lighten my
labors."

"What is it?" asked Grace. "Your plans are always startlingly original
if not very practical."

"This is practical," announced the stout girl. "I'm going to give away
my clothes; that is, the most of them. I found a poor woman the other
day who does scrubbing for the college who needs them. I found out where
she lives and I'm going to bundle them all together and send them to
her. I don't wish her to know where they came from. I'll just write a
card, and--"

The three broadly smi