f to me to have Perdita live up to her name and
reputation, though," said Hannah. "I heard about her all summer as a
little mischief, and I never saw her do an indecorous thing. I didn't
_see_ her do that."

"Well, you may mark my words," said Catherine, "before you have grown
many years older you will hear astonishing tales of Perdita Osgood.
Peter's influence will not always keep her in check. Polly told me that
yesterday she tried to vaccinate the cat, with a mixture of ground chalk
and vinegar! Peter came for help to prevent her!"

"American children are pretty bad, aren't they, Frieda?" said Alice
mischievously, for Frieda's lips were set sternly.

"Don't make her say so," pleaded Hannah teasingly. "She has made such a
beautiful record."

Frieda flushed a little, but slipped her hand into her pocket and felt
there the shape of the little carved frame of Karl's picture and held
her tongue once more. She would not quarrel with Hannah in this last
hour for anything!

"Next year," Hannah said thoughtfully, "I am surely coming to Dexter,
and you three are to get the fire-wall room for us, and we'll live in
glory and rapture."

"If it were only _this_ year!" Alice moaned out the words, and the
others sighed with her. The excitement of getting off had died, and they
were becoming painfully aware of the separation that was approaching
with every revolution of the wheels.

There were other passengers in the car, but they felt peculiarly alone,
none the less. It was a curious tie that bound them. They felt that
their friendship, so oddly started, had something more vital in it than
most school-girl relations. They had all been sorry to leave bright,
lovable Polly, but still, so long as they four stayed together, nothing
could matter very much.

"O, dear," sighed Hannah aloud. "I do think I spend all my time getting
along without somebody or other!"

"'We meet so seldom, yet we surely part so often,'" quoted Catherine
musingly.

"O, Catherine, my darling, if you dare begin on that sad Rossetti
woman!" cried Alice. "You don't know how dreadful she is about it,
Hannah! She goes about for days with a distant sad look in her eyes and,
if she is spoken to suddenly, she says, 'When I was dead my spirit
turned,' or 'Does the road wind uphill all the way? Yes, to the very
end!' or something equally doleful. I feel as though some one were dying
in the next room, and I do believe I'll hide the book."

"It won't do you an