e general exodus," her brother answered.

"But we won't have time to come watch for
them. Oh, Paul, just think, only a little
while now--"

Tom slipped into step with Hilary, a little
behind the others. "I never supposed the old
soul had it in her," he said, glancing to where
Jane trudged heavily on ahead. "Still, I
suppose she was young--once; though I've never
thought of her being so before."

"Yes," Hilary said. "I wonder,--maybe,
she's been better off, after all, right, here at
home. She wouldn't have got to be
Sextoness Jane anywhere else, probably."

Tom glanced at her quickly. "Is there a
hidden meaning--subject to be carefully avoided?"

Hilary laughed. "As you like."

"So you and Paul are off on your travels, too?"

"Yes, though I can hardly believe it yet."

"And just as glad to go as any of us."

"Oh, but we're coming back--after we've
been taught all manner of necessary things."

"Edna'll be the only one of you girls left
behind; it's rough on her."

"It certainly is; we'll all have to write her
heaps of letters."

"Much time there'll be for letter-writing,
outside of the home ones," Tom said.

"Speaking of time," Josie turned towards
them, "we're going to be busier than any bee
ever dreamed of being, before or since Dr. Watts."

They certainly were busy days that
followed. So many of the young folks were
going off that fall that a good many of the
meetings of "The S. W. F. Club" resolved
themselves into sewing-bees, for the girl members only.

"If we'd known how jolly they were, we'd
have tried them before," Bell declared one
morning, dropping down on the rug Pauline
had spread under the trees at one end of the
parsonage lawn.

Patience, pulling bastings with a business-like
air, nodded her curly head wisely. "Miranda says,
folks mostly get 'round to enjoying
their blessings 'bout the time they come to lose them."

"Has the all-important question been
settled yet, Paul?" Edna asked, looking up from
her work. She might not be going away to
school, but even so, that did not debar one
from new fall clothes at home.

"They're coming to Vergennes with me,"
Bell said. "Then we can all come home
together Friday nights."

"They're coming to Boston with me," Josie
corrected, "then we'll be back together for
Thanksgiving."

Shirley, meekly taking her first sewing
lessons under Pauline's instructions, and frankly
declaring that she didn't at all like them,
dropped t