etheart, and who claimed to be "engaged" to her according
to boarding-school fashion.

"Don't mind him, dear," she went on, throwing herself on the floor,
clasping her hands about Lina's knee, and leaning her cheek on it. "You
make me so jealous. Have n't you got me, and ain't I enough?"

"Plenty enough, dear," said Lina, stroking her cheek. "This is only from
my brother Charley."

"The one at Watertown 'Sem.'?"

"Yes," said Lina; "and oh, girls," she went on, with gloomy energy,
"we don't have any good times at all compared with those boys. They
do really wicked things, hook apples, and carry off people's gates and
signs, and screw up tutors' doors in the night, and have fights with
what he calls 'townies,'--I don't know exactly what they are,--and
everything. I thought before that we were doing some things too, but
we 're not, compared with all that, and I shall be so ashamed when I meet
him at home not to have anything to tell except little bits of things."

A depressing pause followed. Lina's disparaging view of achievements in
the way of defying the proprieties, of which all the girls had been very
proud, cast a profound gloom over the circle. The blonde seemed to voice
the common sentiment when she said, resting her chin on Lina's knee, and
gazing pensively at the wall:--

"Oh, dear! that comes of being girls. We might as well be good and done
with it. We can't be bad so as to amount to anything."

"Good or bad, we must eat," said Nell Barber. "I must go and get the
spread ready. I forgot all about it, Lina; but we came in just to invite
you. Eleven sharp, remember. Three knocks, a pause, and another, you
know. Come, girls."

The brunette followed her, but Lina's little sweetheart remained.

"What have they got?" demanded the former listlessly.

"Oh, Nell has a jar of preserves from home, and I smuggled up a plate of
dried beef from tea, and cook let us have some crackers and plates. We
tried hard to get a watermelon there was in the pantry, but cook said
she did n't dare let us have it. It's for dinner to-morrow."

Lina's eyes suddenly became introspective; then after a moment she
rose slowly and stood in her tracks with an expression of deep thought,
absent-mindedly took one step, then another, and after a pause a third,
finally pulling up before the mirror, into which she stared vacantly for
a moment, and then muttered defiantly as she turned away:--

"We 'll see, Master Charley."

"Lina Maynard,