"that it is easier to act good-bye than to say it."

"It is!" declared Harold, wagging his head. "I guess he knew!"

Over the wires, after the children were asleep, went messages to
school and home that banished anxiety, and then the Doctor and his
wife talked long into the night. It had been a disturbing day.

At breakfast Harold announced his intention of remaining in Fair
Harbor and going to school with Polly, but an early telegram from his
father ended his happy planning. He scowled as he read the yellow
slip.

"Return to school at once, and behave yourself."

"Botheration!" he grumbled, "I s'pose I'll have to! Pop always means
what he says."

Yet the lad enjoyed his breakfast, judging by the number of bananas
and muffins that disappeared from his plate, until Polly, thinking of
yesterday's overheard talk, wondered what they should have done if her
cousin had followed out his desire. Bananas cost; she was not so sure
about muffins. In consequence of which she restricted her own appetite
to the latter, and made her mother question if she were quite well, to
pass by her favorite fruit.

Equipped with tickets for the journey and sufficient money to redeem
his watch, besides a generous luncheon, Harold was put aboard the ten
o'clock train. Notwithstanding his longing heart, he carried himself
pluckily, consoled by Mrs. Dudley's invitation to spend a week of his
summer's vacation in Fair Harbor. Yet she saw him suspiciously sweep
his eyes with the back of his hand as the train whirled him off, and
she sighed in sympathy, thinking, "Poor little fellow! he needs a
mother!"

CHAPTER XVI

ROSES AND THORNS

David pulled a rose from the little bush by the house corner, and
began to chew its petals.

"Don't do that!" begged Polly. "It doesn't want to be eaten up."

The boy laughed, looking ruefully down at the jagged edges of the
flower.

"It isn't sweet anyway," he argued. "If I were a rose I'd be sweet,
and I wouldn't have thorns. But then," he went on thoughtfully,
"people are a good deal like roses. Some are sweet, and some aren't;
but 'most everybody has thorns somewhere."

"I guess one of mine's laziness," sighed Polly, "and it's been
pricking the teachers all this week. I hate to study in such warm
weather! I want to stay outdoors instead of being shut up in a stuffy
room."

"It is horrid," agreed Patricia, "but I don't dare be lazy. I have to
get good reports to send back to Nevada. If I did