ind their classes when they returned to school that fall.

To-night, however, it was quite impossible to take a proper interest in
algebraical problems, when each member of the little group had such a
serious individual problem staring her in the face. It did not look as
though they were likely to return to Miss Tolliver's in the immediate
future.

"A penny for your thoughts, girls," remarked Miss Jenny Ann suddenly.
"Eleanor, dear, I am going to begin with you. We are all in the dumps
to-night. Perhaps it will cheer us up to tell one another our
thoughts."

Eleanor shook her head. She had been pretending to look over Miss
Jones's shoulder, but her eyes were really full of tears.

"Don't begin with me," she pleaded. "My thoughts wouldn't cheer anybody
up."

But the girls were firm. Eleanor must tell them.

"Oh, very well," she agreed. "I was thinking of 'Forest House' and
Mother and Father. I could smell Aunt Dinah's light rolls browning in
the kitchen oven, and the ham broiling, and----"

"Oh, please stop, Nellie!" begged Madge huskily.

But Eleanor would not stop. "I was wondering if Mother and Father
believed now that Madge and I were drowned!"

Eleanor dropped her head. There was a dreadful silence in the room that
made Miss Jenny Ann realize that the girls were near to breaking down.
"What were you thinking of, Madge?" she demanded in desperation. Madge
could usually be depended on to cheer the other girls.

The little captain shook her head despondently. "I was thinking of my
father," she answered, almost under her breath. "I was wishing that I
could find him, and that he would take me home."

"Lillian, what are you dreaming about to-night?" Miss Jones questioned
next.

Lillian glanced plaintively into the fire. She popped a particularly
fat kernel of a walnut in her mouth and chewed it thoughtfully before
she replied. Then, still picking at her nuts with a hairpin, she
confessed: "I was thinking, Miss Jenny Ann, that, if once I got back
home, I would never, never eat another nut, not even at Christmas."

The girls forgot their woes and shouted with laughter.

Phil stroked her little fawn gently. She glanced up and surveyed her
four friends squarely. Her face wore its most serious and determined
expression.

"I have been thinking, Miss Jenny Ann, that it is about time for us to
leave the island," she announced.

"My dear Phil, how original you are!" broke in Eleanor, with a pettish
gesture.