ushes on
quite as swiftly but rather less merrily toward the fateful "mid-years."
None of the Chapin house girls had been home at Thanksgiving time, but
they were all going for Christmas, except Eleanor Watson, who intended
to spend the vacation with an aunt in New York.

They prepared for the flitting in characteristic ways. Rachel, who was
very systematic, did all her Christmas shopping, so that she needn't
hurry through it at home. Roberta made but one purchase, an illustrated
"Alice in Wonderland," for her small cousins, and spent all her spare
time in re-reading it herself. Helen, in spite of Betty's suggestions
about leaning back on her reputation, studied harder than ever, so that
she could go home with a clear conscience, while Katherine was too
excited to study at all, and Mary Brooks jeered impartially at both of
them. Betty conscientiously returned all her calls and began packing
several days ahead, so as to make the time seem shorter. Then just as
the expressman was driving off with her trunk, she remembered that she
had packed her short skirt at the very bottom.

"Thank you ever so much. If he'd got much further I should have had to
go home either in this gray bath robe that I have on, or in a white duck
suit," she said to Katherine who had gone to rescue the skirt and came
back with it over her arm.

She and Katherine started west together and Eleanor and Roberta went
with them to the nearest junction. The jostling, excited crowd at the
station, the "good-byes" and "Merry Christmases," were great fun. Betty,
remembering a certain forlorn afternoon in early autumn, laughed happily
to herself.

"What's the joke?" asked Katherine.

"I was thinking how much nicer things like this seem when you're in
them," she said, waving her hand to Alice Waite.

At the Cleveland station, mother and Will and Nan and the smallest
sister were watching eagerly for the returning wanderer.

"Why, Betty Wales, you haven't changed one bit," announced the smallest
sister in tones of deepest wonder. "Why, I'd have known you anywhere,
Betty, if I'd met you on the street."

"Three months isn't quite as long as all that," said Betty, hugging the
smallest sister, "but I was hoping I looked a little older. Nobody ever
mistakes me for a senior, as they do Rachel Morrison. And I ought to
look years and years wiser."

"Nonsense," said Will with a lordly air. "Now a college girl----"

Everybody laughed. "You see we all know your t