!"

"Then I guess I shall get over it soon as I'm really there," she said
bravely. "I wouldn't give it up for anything!"

Yet the end of the pleasant all-day's journey found Polly looking
forward to her promised month with a vague uneasiness. She half
wished she had confided in her mother and had let her decide. While
listening to Patricia's happy chatter, she wondered whether she had
done right in coming, arguing the question back and forth; still so
secretly did she carry on her own line of thought that merry Patricia
never guessed she was not holding Polly's entire attention.

In the morning things looked different. The charming little village of
Midvale Springs, dropped so cozily among the Vermont hills, won
Polly's heart at first daylight glance. If father and mother were
there, too! But even with the knowledge that they were hundreds of
miles away the early days of her visit were spent very happily. There
was so much to see, new faces at every turn, merry playmates at all
hours, straw rides and barn frolics, beautiful drives alongside
tumbling brooks and through deep mountain gorges,--Polly's letters
home told of these unfamiliar scenes and pleasures. Mrs. Dudley said
to herself that the homesickness must have passed with the journey.

Polly had been at the Springs but a week when she was one of a party
to spend the day at Lazy Lake, twenty miles distant. On her return,
in the early twilight, a small figure popped out of the dusk to give
her a frantic embrace.

"Harold!" she exclaimed, recovering wits and breath together. "Where
did you come from?"

"Fair Harbor," promptly answered the unabashed boy. "Couldn't find
anybody home at your house, and that feller next door--what's his
name?--"

"David Collins?"

"Yes, David--he said you were up here, so I came right along."

At first it was a problem to know how to dispose of the rash little
lad; but by dint of certain shifts a room in the hotel was finally
provided for him, and he fitted very happily into the gay life there.

The next week another surprise came to Polly, and it was even greater
than the advent of Harold.

An automobile had gone to the nearest station, ten miles away, to meet
the evening train and fetch back some new boarders--so much the
children knew; but as this was not an unusual occurrence they only
wondered mildly if there would be any boys or girls among the coming
guests. They had finished their last game of tennis, and were loung