as soon after as she can. They are all of them the _dearest_
girls!"

"Pretty?" asked Archie.

"Wait and see," laughed Catherine. "They'll make their own impression,
but I want you all to be friends as we are."

"We'll do our best to entertain them," said Bert. "Distinguished
foreigners don't come our way every day. I move you, Madam President,
that we make these Wide Awake young ladies honorary members of the
Club."

The motion was put and carried with a round of applause, and a few
minutes later the Boat Club meeting was informally adjourned.

Algernon, reaching home at midnight, stole into his brother's room and
hung the bird-hoop near his bedside. With characteristic perverseness
Elsmere, a sound sleeper by day, was easily wakened at night, and, as
Algernon slipped out of the room, he sat up and watched the birds
bobbing in the moonlight. Presently he dropped back on his pillow,
sleepily content.

"Springs!" he said, "like Algy walks."

PART TWO

THE COMING OF FRIEDA

CHAPTER EIGHT

A FORTUNATE MEETING

On the day of Polly's party, far away in the village of Ventnor on the
Isle of Wight, some one was thinking of the young people of Winsted and
their library undertaking.

A tall woman walked swiftly along the road toward Freshwater, enjoying
its charming variety, the sudden glimpses of sea beyond the chalk
cliffs, the quaint cottages and lanes, and at a certain bend the trees
she loved better than all the rest, with ivy running over the ground and
up the mighty trunks. There was a radiance about Clara Lyndesay which
seemed to make whatever she looked upon more beautiful than it had been
before. No one had ever been able to analyze it, to decide how much was
due to the sunny hair, how much to the blue eyes, and the smile that
suggested sweet wistful things that never could be told, and how much to
her own deep inner peace. "The beauty of you certainly helps the
goodness make its impression," Dr. Helen said to her once, "and yet I am
half inclined to believe that it is the goodness that makes the beauty!"

Just now there was no analyst at hand, no one, in fact, but a stout
small boy, driving a butcher's cart. He felt the force of the charm,
however uncritically, and grabbed his cap from his head as he drew up
beside the lady.

"The landlady down there asked me to give you these here, thank you!" He
handed out two letters, and then clucked to his horse in an embarrassed
fashion as Miss