,
and of the softly falling and changing shade, and the slow
forth-coming of the stars: and Ruth gave them music, and by and by
they had a little German, out there on the long, wide esplanade. It
was the one magnificence of their house,--this high, spacious terrace;
Rosamond was thankful every day that Grandfather Holabird _had_ to
build the wood-house under it.

After this, Westover began to grow to be more of a centre than our
home, cheery and full of girl-life as it was, had ever been able to
become before.

They might have transplanted the game,--they did take slips from
it,--and we might not always have had tickets to our own play; but
they could not transplant Harry Goldthwaite and Dakie Thayne. They
_would_ come over, nearly every day, at morning or evening, and
practise "coil," or make some other plan or errand; and so there came
to be always something going on at the Holabirds', and if the other
girls wanted it, they had to come where it was.

Mrs. Van Alstyne came often; Rosamond grew very intimate with her.

Mrs. Lewis Marchbanks did say, one day, that she thought "the
Holabirds were slightly mistaking their position"; but the remark did
not come round, westover, till long afterward, and meanwhile the
position remained the same.

It was right in the midst of all this that Ruth astonished the family
again, one evening.

"I wish," she said, suddenly, just as if she were not suggesting
something utterly incongruous and disastrous, "that we could ask
Lucilla Waters up here for a little visit."

The girls had a way, in Z----, of spending two or three days together
at each other's houses, neighbors though they were, within easy reach,
and seeing each other almost constantly. Leslie Goldthwaite came up to
the Haddens', or they went down to the Goldthwaites'. The Haddens
would stay over night at the Marchbanks', and on through the next day,
and over night again. There were, indeed, three recognized degrees of
intimacy: that which took tea,--that which came in of a morning and
stayed to lunch,--and that which was kept over night without plan or
ceremony. It had never been very easy for us Holabirds to do such
things without plan; of all things, nearly, in the world, it seemed to
us sometimes beautiful and desirable to be able to live just so as
that we might.

"I wish," said Ruth, "that we could have Lucilla Waters here."

"My gracious!" cried Rosamond, startled into a soft explosion. "What
for?"

"Why,