buggy."

"And you'll take the first ride in it with me?" demanded Lucas, shrewdly.

"Yes! I'll verily risk my life in your buzz-wagon," laughed the girl. "But
now! that's a long way ahead yet, Lucas."

The summer had passed ere all these things were done and said. Nor
had the Bray girls lost a single opportunity of making their original
venture--that of keeping boarders at Hillcrest--a success.

Lyddy had bought her cooking stove, her chickens had turned out a nice
little flock for the next year, the garden had done splendidly, and when
the corn was harvested the girls banked a hundred dollars over and above
the cost of raising the crop.

Best of all, their father's state of health had so much improved, during
these last few weeks, that the girls could look forward with confidence
to his complete restoration, in time, to a really robust condition.

Hillcrest had been his salvation. The sun and air of the mountainside home
had finally brought him well on the road to recovery; and the joy his two
daughters felt because of this fact can scarcely be expressed in words.

Grandma Castle and the Chadwicks wanted to remain until New Year's, so
the girls got no real vacation. Several automobile parties had now found
their way to the house on the hill, and the old-fashioned viands, the
huge rooms, open fires, and all the "queer" furniture induced them to
return from time to time.

So Lyddy and 'Phemie decided to be prepared for such parties, or for other
people who wished to board for a week or so at a time, all winter.

Mr. Bray had grown so much stronger by now that sometimes he expressed
his belief that he ought to go back to the shop and earn money, too.

"Wait till next season, Father," Lydia urged him, softly. "We can all pull
together here, and if we have only a measure of good fortune, we shall
be independent indeed by _next_ fall."

The prospect was surely bright--as bright as that which lay before Lyddy
and Harris Colesworth one Indian summer day as they strolled down the lane
to the highroad.

"I don't see how Aunt Jane can find this place lonely," sighed Lyddy,
leaning just a little on the young man's arm, but with her gaze sweeping
all the fair mountainside.

"_You_ couldn't leave it, Lyddy?" he asked, with sudden wistfulness.

"No, indeed! Not for long. No other place would seem like _home_ to me
after our experience here. It's more like home than the house I was born
in at Easthampton.

"You see,