n when they wandered four abreast, and arm
in arm about the place, for a farewell glance at every nook and corner,
where they had romped and played in the five weeks just gone. Even when
the words were not wailed out disconsolately by one of them and echoed
by the others, the thought that each thing they were doing was for the
last time, went with them like a mournful undercurrent.

"Did you ever have a day fly by as fast as this one?" asked Joyce that
afternoon, looking up from the trunk that Mom Beck was helping her to
pack. "Here it is nearly six o'clock, and I haven't been down to the
mulberry-tree. I wanted one more swing on the grape-vine swing before I
dressed for dinner. It's like flying to go sailing through the air,
across the ravine, on that grape-vine that covers the mulberry-tree."

"There won't be time now," said the Little Colonel, casting an anxious
look toward the front windows. If the girls had not been so busily
occupied, they might have noticed how she had been manoeuvring for some
time to keep them away from the front windows. She even took them down
the back stairs when they were ready for dinner, with the excuse that
she wanted them to see the hamper in which Joyce's puppy was to travel.
Eugenia's Bob was to be left at Locust until after she had made her trip
abroad.

Joyce had a fresh blue satin ribbon packed away in her satchel to tie
around her Bob's neck just before reaching home. "Oh, girls!" she
exclaimed, "don't you know that those children are going to be delighted
when this fat little dumpling comes rolling out of the hamper? They will
all grab for him at once, and Mary will be so tickled she will squeal.
She always does when she is excited, and it is _so_ funny. I wish I
could hear her do it this blessed minute. Somehow I can hardly wait to
see them all now, although I don't want to leave Locust one bit. I have
had _such_ a good time!"

Mom Beck came out just then to tell them that dinner was waiting, and
Lloyd hurried them through the back hall again, although she herself ran
to the front door and looked out, before she took her seat at the table.
It was a merry meal, for Papa Jack told his best stories, and Cousin
Carl, as they all called Mr. Forbes now, recalled his funniest jokes to
make the children forget how near they had come to the parting hour. And
when the dessert was brought on they sang a duet they had learned when
school-boys together, at which every one laughed until th