ood yourself while you were at the Merrimans'. How can
you expect me to be?"

"We'll keep each other good. When I am inclined to be naughty you shall
correct me, and when you are inclined to be naughty I will correct you.
We will arrange to sleep in the same room. Shall we try it, Irene--shall
we?"

Irene paused for a minute. There were tears in her eyes. After a moment
she said, "How long is it since I have known you?"

"About six or seven weeks."

"It seems like quite that number of years. I never can believe that
there could have been a time when I didn't know you. I know you, oh, so
well now, and I love you so much! You have done a great deal for me."

"I don't pretend that I haven't, Irene. But I must do what my father and
mother want during the holidays. I do think it would be a splendid plan
to ask little Hughie and Agnes to spend August at The Follies. I wonder
what Frosty would say? Let us ask her after supper."

Irene flung her arms round Rosamund's neck.

"I don't quite promise to be good," she said; "but I'll do my best. I
will do it for your sake, more particularly if you will promise that you
will be with us for the first few days."

"Yes, I'll be with you for the first week. They could come early next
week, and I am not going away until the week after."

"Oh! don't talk about it; it is too horrible. Let us come into the
fields and talk about ourselves."

The two girls did walk together, and it was Irene's turn to tell
Rosamund some of the wild and fanciful fairy-tales which she was always
making up. But she could never be still very long, and in the midst of
her most earnest and fascinating stories she would rush from one end of
the field to the other, or turn a somersault, or climb a tree and look
down at Rosamund with her laughing, mocking face from the midst of the
branches. But then again she would be good, and come back and say that
the wicked little living thing inside her was quiet for the time being.

"I wonder if it will ever go away?" she said. "If it were gone I'd be
much like other girls; but as long as it is there I can't be like any
girl--I can't."

"There is such a thing as praying to God to take it away. But perhaps it
is never meant to go," said Rosamund.

"What do you mean by that?"

"Perhaps it is a very beautiful gift that God has given you--something
that you can't quite control at present, but something which will make
you by-and-by different from others: more earnes