rest."

Hazel Ripwinkley went to Mrs. Hilman's school, with her cousin
Helena. That was because the school was a thoroughly good one; the
best her mother could learn of; not because it was kept in parlors
in Dorset Street, and there were girls there who came from palaces
west of the Common, in the grand avenues and the ABC streets; nor
did Hazel wear her best gray and black velvet suit for every day,
though the rich colored poplins with their over-skirts and sashes,
and the gay ribbons for hair and neck made the long green baize
covered tables look like gardenplots with beds of bloom, and quite
extinguished with their brilliancy the quiet, one skirted brown
merino that she brushed and folded every night, and put on with
fresh linen cuffs and collar every morning.

"It is an idiosyncrasy of Aunt Frances," Helena explained, with the
grandest phrase she could pick out of her "Synonymes," to cow down
those who "wondered."

Privately, Helena held long lamentations with Hazel, going to and
fro, about the party that she could not have.

"I'm actually ashamed to go to school. There isn't a girl there, who
can pretend to have anything, that hasn't had some kind of a company
this winter. I've been to them all, and I feel real mean,--sneaky.
What's 'next year?' Mamma puts me off with that. Poh? Next year
they'll all begin again. You can't skip birthdays."

"I'll tell you what!" said Hazel, suddenly, inspired by much the
same idea that had occurred to Mrs. Ripwinkley; "I mean to ask my
mother to let _me_ have a party!"

"You! Down in Aspen Street! Don't, for pity's sake, Hazel!"

"I don't believe but what it could be done over again!" said Hazel,
irrelevantly, intent upon her own thought.

"It couldn't be done _once_! For gracious grandmother's sake, don't
think of it!" cried the little world-woman of thirteen.

"It's gracious grandmother's sake that made me think of it," said
Hazel, laughing. "The way she used to do."

"Why don't you ask them to help you hunt up old Noah, and all get
back into the ark, pigeons and all?"

"Well, I guess they had pretty nice times there, any how; and if
another big rain comes, perhaps they'll have to!"

Hazel did not intend her full meaning; but there is many a faint,
small prophecy hid under a clover-leaf.

Hazel did not let go things; her little witch-wand, once pointed,
held its divining angle with the might of magic until somebody broke
ground.

"It's awful!" Helena declared