gan to move. She stood there, on the lowest step, slowly gliding away
from them, and in her eyes there was a sparkle of tears, left, it may
be, from her laughter at poor William's pageant with Jane and Rannie
Kirsted--or, it may be, not.

She could not wave to her friends, in answer to their gestures of
farewell, for her arms were too full of Flopit and roses and candy and
sweet peas; but she kept nodding to them in a way that showed them how
much she thanked them for being sorry she was going--and made it clear
that she was sorry, too, and loved them all.

"Good-by!" she meant.

Faster she glided; the engine passed from sight round a curve beyond a
culvert, but for a moment longer they could see the little figure upon
the steps--and, to the very last glimpse they had of her, the small,
golden head was still nodding "Good-by!" Then those steps whereon she
stood passed in their turn beneath the culvert, and they saw her no
more.

Lola Pratt was gone!

Wet-eyed, her young hostess of the long summer turned away, and stumbled
against William. "Why, Willie Baxter!" she cried, blinking at him.

The last car of the train had rounded the curve and disappeared, but
William was still waving farewell--not with his handkerchief, but with
a symmetrical, one-pound parcel, wrapped in white tissue-paper, girdled
with blue ribbon.

"Never mind!" said May Parcher. "Let's all walk Up-town together, and
talk about her on the way, and we'll go by the express-office, and you
can send your candy to her by express, Willie."

XXX

THE BRIDE-TO-BE

In the smallish house which all summer long, from morning until late
at night, had resounded with the voices of young people, echoing their
songs, murmurous with their theories of love, or vibrating with their
glee, sometimes shaking all over during their more boisterous moods--in
that house, now comparatively so vacant, the proprietor stood and
breathed deep breaths.

"Hah!" he said, inhaling and exhaling the air profoundly.

His wife was upon the porch, outside, sewing. The silence was deep.
He seemed to listen to it--to listen with gusto; his face slowly
broadening, a pinkish tint overspreading it. His flaccid cheeks appeared
to fill, to grow firm again, a smile finally widening them.

"HAH!" he breathed, sonorously. He gave himself several resounding slaps
upon the chest, then went out to the porch and sat in a rocking-chair
near his wife. He spread himself out expansively.