emembering the scanty harvest she had spilled in her tumble.

"Your family must be very fond of raspberries," observed Ruth.

"Raspberry jam, I suppose," said the practical Peggy, but the sunbonnet
negatived the suggestion by a slow shake.

"No. It's not that. I pick berries for pay. I send them into the city on
the express train every night as long as the season lasts. I want to go
to school," she ended rather abruptly, "and I'm ready to do anything I
can to make a little money."

"And did you really pick them all to-day?" persisted Amy, eyeing the
milk-pail respectfully. "It would take me a year, at the least
calculation."

Lucy Haines smiled gravely at the extravagance. "I've been doing it all
my life," she said. "That makes a difference."

"Then you've lived here always?"

"Yes, and my mother before me, and her mother, too. When I was a little
girl I used to love to hear grandmother tell how one time she was
picking blackberries in this very pasture, and she heard a sound and
peered around the bush. And there sat a brown bear, eating berries as
fast as he could."

"I'm glad Dorothy isn't around to hear that story," Peggy cried
laughing; "she'd be sure it was bears whenever anything rustled." But
Amy's face was serious.

"That's worse than cows!" she exclaimed. "The next time I hear a noise
on the other side of a bush, I shan't even dare to scream."

Lucy Haines shifted her pail from her left hand to her right. "Well, I
guess I'll call my stint done for to-day. Good-by!"

"Good-by," the others echoed, and Peggy added, with her friendly smile,
"I suppose we'll see you again some day. I hope so, I'm sure."

She repeated the wish a little later, as the sunbonnet went out of sight
over the brow of the hill. "Because she seems such a nice sort of girl.
I'm going to like this place, I know. There are such interesting people
in it."

"Oh, Peggy," Amy cried with a teasing laugh, "you know you'd like any
place, and you find all kinds of people interesting." And then because
the sight of Lucy Haines' full pail had made them somewhat dissatisfied
with the results of their own efforts, they all fell to picking with a
tremendous display of industry.

Priscilla and Claire were on the porch when the others came home laden
with their spoils. Claire wore a noticeable air of complacency, but
Priscilla looked a little tired and despondent. All through their stroll
Claire had harped on the joy of being by themselves at