boat
hands were about to draw the gang plank back to the steamer's deck, she
gave another little cry and fairly pushed Alfaretta toward it.

"Never mind hugging me now, girlie, you must go or you'll be left!"

But the lassie from the mountain only smiled and answered:

"I don't mind if I am. Look a-here!" and with that she pulled a shabby
purse from the front of her blouse and triumphantly displayed its
contents.

"Oh! Alfy! How'll you ever get back?"

"Easy as preachin'. I--"

But Dorothy had no further time to waste in argument. Here were Jim
Barlow and Monty Stark shaking either hand and bidding a hasty good-by,
while Molly Breckenridge was fairly dancing up and down in her anxiety
lest the lads should also be left on board, as Alfaretta was likely to
be.

But they were not. Another second they had bounded down the stairs from
the saloon to the lower deck, a workman had obligingly caught Monty by
his coat collar and laughingly flung him over the plank to the dock
beyond, while Jim's long legs strode after and made their last leap
across a little chasm of water.

"Good-by, good-by, good-by!"

Handkerchiefs waved, kisses were tossed across the widening water, the
bell rang, the whistle tooted, and Dorothy's travels had begun. Then as
the group of schoolmates watching this departure from the shore grew
more indistinct she turned upon her old mountain friend with the
astonished question:

"But Alfaretta! Whatever made you do this? What will become of you,
alone in that great city of New York?"

"I didn't say anything about Ne' York, did I? Should think you'd be glad
to have me go along with you a little bit o' way. Course, I shall get
off the boat when it stops to Cornwall landing. And I thought--I
thought--Seems if I _couldn't_ have you go so far away, Dolly. It's
terrible lonesome up-mounting now-a-days. And I--I don't see why some
folks has everything and some hasn't nothin'!"

There was more grief than grammar in this speech and a few tears sprang
to the girl's eyes. But Alfy boasted that she was not a "crier" and as
she heard the stewardess announcing: "Tickets, ladies and gentlemen,"
she dashed the moisture away and stared at the woman.

After her usual custom, "Fanny" was collecting money from the various
passengers and would obligingly procure their tickets for those not
already provided. As she made her way through the throng, which on that
summer morning crowded the upper deck of the pretty "M