e
an old ruined stone wall, under which nestled a bunch of dry goldenrod.
But the background! Did ever the maddest artist's brain conceive of such?
Clear and distinct, where sky should have been, stood--a frying-pan!

CHAPTER XXIV

WHISPERS

March, with its winds and storms, slipped away as though glad to whisk
such trying days off the calendar, and, ere the girls realized it, Easter
vacation was upon them, and capricious April was playing the schoolgirl
herself, with one day a smile and the next a frown. But, like the
schoolgirl, her smiles were all the sunnier for the frowns.

It must indeed be a dull, prosy old heart which cannot respond to the soft
beauty of early spring, and want to frisk and frolic for very sympathy
with all the new life springing into existence all about it. And there
were no dull or prosy ones at Sunny Bank.

For some time the girls had known that this would be Miss Howard's last
year with them; but now little whispers began to fly about, as little
whispers have a trick of doing, that Miss Howard was about to enter
another school, where she would be pupil instead of teacher, and there
learn the sweetest lesson ever taught on this big earth--a lesson which
says, "Not mine and thine, but ours, for ours is mine and thine;" and,
while they rejoiced in her happiness, they were nearly inconsolable at the
thought of losing her, for she had filled a very beautiful place in their
lives--far more beautiful than they suspected. It was always Miss Howard
who entered into all their little plans and pleasures, participated in
their joys, and sympathized with their sorrows.

She was little more than a girl herself, yet possessed the strength of
character sometimes wanting in a much older person, and by it set a
beautiful example for her girls to follow. And they followed it
unconsciously to themselves and to her, for never was there a more modest
little body than Miss Howard, and had anyone hinted that she was a mighty
balance-wheel to her fly-away girls, a source of encouragement to her
timid ones, an inspiration to her ambitious ones, and an object of very
sincere affection to all, she would probably have been the most surprised
person in the school. Yet such was undoubtedly the fact, and it would have
been a very wrong-headed girl, indeed, who was not ready to yield to her
influence.

"If I felt criss-cross with all the world, I believe I'd have to smile
back when Miss Howard smiled at me,"