haste seemed
to communicate itself to her, for, springing up, she stood with one hand
pressing her little signet ring into the wax, while the other reached
for the stamp-box.

"I'll be through in half a second," she said. "This lettah should have
gone off yestahday. If you will post it on the train for me it will save
time and get there soonah."

"All right," he answered. "Come on and walk down to the gate with me,
and we'll stop at the measuring-tree. We can't let the old custom go by
when we've kept it up so many years, and I won't be back again this
vacation."

Swinging the letter back and forth to make sure that the ink was dry,
she walked along beside him. "Oh, I wish you weren't going away!" she
exclaimed, forlornly. "It's going to be dreadfully stupid the rest of
the summah."

They reached the measuring-tree, and taking out his knife and
pocket-rule, Rob passed his fingers over the notches which stood for the
many years they had measured their heights against the old locust. Then
he held out the rule and waited for her to take her place under it, with
her back against the tree.

"What a long way you've stretched up between six and seventeen," he
said. "This'll be about the last time we'll need to go through this
ceremony, for I've reached my top notch, and probably you have too."

"Wait!" she exclaimed, stooping to pick something out of the grass at
her feet. "Heah's anothah foah-leaved clovah. I find one neahly every
time I come down this side of the avenue. I'm making a collection of
them. When I get enough, maybe I'll make a photograph-frame of them."

"Then you ought to put your own picture in it, for you're certainly the
luckiest person for finding them I ever heard of. I'm going to carve one
on the tree, here by this last notch under the date. It will be quite
neat and symbolical, don't you think? A sort of 'when this you see
remember me' hieroglyphic. It will remind you of the long discussions
we've had on the subject since we read 'Abdallah' together."

He dug away in silence for a moment, then said, "It's queer how you
happened to find that just now, for last night I came across a verse
about one, that made me think of you, and I learned it on purpose to say
to you--sort of a farewell wish, you know."

"Spouting poetry is a new accomplishment for you, Bobby," said Lloyd,
teasingly. "I certainly want to hear it. Go on."

She looked down to thrust the stem of the clover through the silver
arr