t; and you're
feeling happier, aren't you?" she asked the girl.

Steve put his arm around his little bride gently. "I guess she won't
ever feel bad again. I shan't let her go off alone any more. And thank
you for what you done. I shan't forget it. Say, couldn't you stop off
now for the wedding?"

"O, do," begged the bride, and Alice had to refuse tenderly. She watched
them get into the buggy, and drive happily away, waving to her as they
did so. Then she turned back to her train, and her own car.

One of the card-playing women was tired and inclined to be sociable. So
Alice sat with her, by invitation, and listened to the history of her
family's diseases and operations, and her difficulties with servants,
till the train was started once more and the rumble of the cars resumed
their interrupted song of "Getting nearer, getting nearer."

"I must hear it that way every minute," Alice thought, as she took her
own seat again, and while the lamps were lighted, watched in the windows
not the rushing landscape but her own face. "It would be so easy to hear
'Getting farther,' and think of leaving home for nine whole months, but
I'll just remember Hannah and Catherine and Frieda and dear Dexter,--and
that will keep the garment from slipping off my shoulders."

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

FINDING A VOCATION

On the second afternoon after Alice's arrival, the four girls walked
down to the post-office to mail their letters, Catherine having written
to Miss Lyndesay, while the other three wrote to their mothers. Now,
pleasantly conscious of duty performed, they strolled idly along the
street.

It was "library afternoon" and Catherine had a book to exchange for a
busy neighbor, who much enjoyed the library privileges, but seldom had
time to choose her own books. The girls turned in at the library door,
which was hospitably open. Several people were waiting at the desk,
while Algernon busily attended to their wants. Catherine laid down her
book and went over to the fiction shelves to find something to take its
place. The other girls wandered about, looking at the soldierly rows of
books, and at the effective picture bulletin which Bess had made to
celebrate the Fourth of July, a list of patriotic books under crossed
flags,--turned the pages of the half dozen magazines on the
reading-table, and then, by common consent gathered in the little alcove
devoted to children's books.

"Three copies of _Alice in Wonderland_!" exclaimed