"Mother said you were
to weed the aster bed."

Patience looked longingly after the two starting gayly off down the
path, their cameras swung over their shoulders, then she looked
disgustedly at the aster bed. It was quite the biggest of the smaller
beds.--She didn't see what people wanted to plant so many asters for;
she had never cared much for asters, she felt she should care even less
about them in the future. Tiresome, stiff affairs!

By the time Tom and Hilary reached the old Cross-Roads' Meeting-House
that morning, after a long roundabout ramble, Hilary, for one, was
quite willing to sit down and wait for Pauline and the trap, and eat
the great, juicy blackberries Tom gathered for her from the bushes
along the road.

It had rained during the night and the air was crisp and fresh, with a
hint of the coming fall. "Summer's surely on the down grade," Tom
said, throwing himself on the bank beside Hilary.

"So Paul and I were lamenting this morning. I don't suppose it matters
as much to you folks who are going off to school."

"Still it means another summer over," Tom said soberly. He was rather
sorry that it was so--there could never be another summer quite so
jolly and carefree. "And the breaking up of the club, I suppose?"

"I don't see why we need call it a break--just a discontinuance, for a
time."

"And why that, even? There'll be a lot of you left, to keep it going."

"Y-yes, but with three, or perhaps more, out, I reckon we'll have to
postpone the next installment until another summer."

Tom went off then for more berries, and Hilary sat leaning back against
the trunk of the big tree crowning the top of Meeting-House Hill, her
eyes rather thoughtful. From where she sat, she had a full view of
both roads for some distance and, just beyond, the little hamlet
scattered about the old meeting-house.

Before the gate of one of the houses stood a familiar gig, and
presently, as she sat watching, Dr. Brice came down the narrow
flower-bordered path, followed by a woman. At the gate both stopped;
the woman was saying something, her anxious, drawn face seeming out of
keeping with the cheery freshness of the morning and the flowers
nodding their bright heads about her.

As the doctor stood listening, his old shabby medicine case in his
hand, with face bent to the troubled one raised to his, and bearing
indicating grave sympathy and understanding, Hilary reached for her
camera.

"Upon my word! Isn