hey could, simply
because they would have preferred something else. But I'm a firm
believer that every one has a gift."

"Is _Handarbeit_ a gift?" asked Frieda, looking with respect at the
graceful vine twining over the shoulder of her blue apron.

"Indeed it is," said Dr. Helen. "And it is a gift more widely
distributed than everybody knows. If you can, do help Catherine to
discover that it is one of hers!"

"She helped me find out that I liked to sew," said Hannah. "I hated the
sight of a needle before I went to Germany. But I didn't know you hated
sewing, Catherine."

"I don't," Catherine answered tranquilly. "But there are always so many
other things to do, and there is so much to read. It makes me shiver to
think that I have only three years more at Dexter, and I haven't begun
to read all I want to. I'd like to move over to the library and stay
there."

"That's a serious criticism of your college life, Catherine," said Dr.
Helen.

Hannah giggled. "I suppose there is a library at Dexter, but I was there
a whole term, and never went inside it once!"

Everybody laughed. "Well," said Dr. Helen, "that was the other extreme.
But I suppose if you young people were all-wise and learned, there'd be
no point in sending you to college at all. And the world would be much
more monotonous if it were filled with grown-ups! What a conflagration
those red candles will make, Frieda!"

Catherine had left her seat and gone across the room to the poetry
section of the bookcase, and was now turning the pages of a small green
book.

"Listen to this Singing Leaf, Mother!

"'The wisest finding that I have
Is very young, no doubt,
Yet many a man must needs grow old
Before he finds it out.

"'How happily it comes about--
And I was never told!--
That we must all be young awhile
Before we _can_ be old!'"

Dr. Helen laughed. "That is certainly very appropriate, and a good close
to our rather sermonizing talk. I suppose fifty-year-old birthday
parties should lead one to serious thinking! But now show me how far
your nonsense rhyming has progressed. It's nearly supper time."

* * * * *

The Three R's were early comers and late stayers. Before the summer
twilight was over, they had gathered in force. Alice, counting, suddenly
said:

"Why, there are just forty-nine. Wouldn't it be fun if just one more
should come?"

"Who isn't here?" asked s