chicken, come and sleep with me if you'll rest better."

Betty awoke and went in later that night to see if Libbie had vanished
again, but found her sleeping normally. In the morning the girl was much
surprised to find she had been wandering in the garden and betrayed
considerable interest in the details. Betty decided that it would be
better to omit Esther's belief that she had eloped, and Libbie was
allowed to remain in blissful ignorance of the action her youthful cousin
attributed to her.

The last day sped by all too soon, and what the Tucker twins persisted
in pessimistically designating the "fateful Thursday" was upon them.

"I don't know why you sigh so frequently," dimpled Betty, who sat next to
Tommy Tucker at the breakfast table. "I'm very anxious to go to school.
Don't you really like to go back?"

"It's like this," said Tommy, the "dark Tucker twin," solemnly. "From
four to ten p.m. (except on drill nights) I like it well enough, and from
ten, lights out, till six, reveille, I'm fairly contented. But from nine
to four, when we're cooped up in classrooms, I simply detest school!"

Teddy, the "light Tucker twin," nodded in confirmation.

"I suppose we have to be educated," he admitted, with the air of one
making a generous concession to public opinion, "but I don't see why they
find it necessary to prolong the agony. Any one who can read and write
can make a living."

"Perhaps your father hopes you'll do a bit more than that," suggested Mr.
Littell slyly.

This effectually silenced the twins, for their wealthy father was a
splendid scientist who had made several explorations that had contributed
materially to the knowledge of the scientific world, and he had lost the
sight of one eye in a laboratory experiment undertaken to advance the
cause for which he labored.

The Littell car carried the twelve to the station soon after
breakfast, and though Shadyside and Salsette, unlike many of the large
northern schools, ran no "special," the few passengers who were not
school bound found themselves decidedly in the minority on the "9:36
local" that morning.

"Remember, Betty, you and Bob are to spend the holidays with us," said
Mrs. Littell, as she kissed her good-bye. "If your uncle comes down from
Canada, he must come, too."

"All aboard!" shouted the conductor, who foresaw a lively trip. "No'm,
you can't go through the gate--nobody can."

The crowd of fathers and mothers and younger brothers and sis