and we've known it for
quite a long time; but you see, mamma, we're _make-believing_, just for
fun."

"I never saw such a child for 'make-believing,'" said Mrs. Gray, kissing
Flaxie, who skipped gayly out of the room to pack her valise.

She always packed it, if there was the least thing said about going
away. She didn't mind the trouble, it was such a pretty valise,--made
of brown canvas, with leather straps like a trunk. And she knew Aunt
Charlotte would want her at Hilltop,--people always do want little
girls, and can't have too many of them,--and it was best to be ready in
season.

So she looked up her little umbrella, with F. F. painted on it in white
letters, her school-books that she had been playing school with all over
the house, and a half bushel or so of her best dolls. But as she did not
go for a week, she had time to lose these things over and over, and some
of them were never found any more.

"Now, darling," said mamma, when Flaxie had bidden good-bye to papa and
Preston, and Ninny and the baby, and was just entering the car behind
her friend Mrs. Prim. "Now, darling, don't be troublesome to dear Aunt
Charlotte, and if you'll learn to be good and orderly and sweet like
your Cousin Milly, I shall be so glad."

Flaxie pondered upon this speech as she sat rattling along in the cars,
munching peanuts, while Mrs. Prim took care of the shells.

"Troublesome. Oh, my! 's if _I_ ever troubled anybody! 'Cept Grandma
Gray; and that's 'cause she's got something in her back. But mamma
_always_ thinks Milly is nicer than me! Queer what makes mammas _never_
like their own little girls!--I mean, not much. Now Aunt Charlotte
thinks I'm the nicest. She scolds to Milly sometimes, but she don't
scold to ME!"

Hilltop had been green when Flaxie left it, but now it was white, and
seemed lovelier than ever, for Johnny had a new sled, and was "_such_ a
kind-hearted boy!" That is, he was always ready to draw the twin cousins
on the ice till they were half frozen and begged him to stop, and I
hardly see how he _could_ have been kinder than that!

Then the school was "perfickly elegant," taught by that same dear
teacher, Miss Pike. What if her nose _was_ red, and her mouth so large
that little Betty Chase called her "the lady that can't shut her face"?
She was just lovely for all that, and Flaxie and Milly couldn't forget
that she had saved the schoolhouse when it was set on fire by mistake.
After that she hadn't looked ho