once that men were the cause of most heartaches, so I
asked her----"

"What _did_ she say? Wasn't she furious?"

"No--I think she was glad I did. Maybe, if you didn't have any family
and lived in a great big boarding house where you couldn't talk to
anyone except 'bout the weather and the stew and things, you'd even like
to confide in me. She just blushed and looked downright pretty, but
dreadfully sad. She said she'd had a very, very dear friend--you could
tell she meant a lover--but that it was all past and he had forgotten
her. I suppose I should have said to her that it's 'better to have loved
and lost than never to have loved at all,' but I just asked her if he
was handsome, which was foolish, because she'd think he was if he was as
homely as anything."

"And was he?"

"She said he was distinguished--a straight nose and a firm chin and
black hair with a white streak running straight down through the middle,
like Lee's black-and-white setter dog, I guess. Girls, mustn't it be
_dreadful_ to have to go on day after day with your heart like a cold
stone inside of you and no one to love you and to teach school?"

Each girl, with her own life full to brimming with love, looked as
though they felt very sorry, indeed, for poor little Miss Gray.

"Let's do something to make her happy," suggested Pat.

"Do you suppose we could find the man? They must have quarreled and
maybe, if he knew----"

"There can't be many men with white streaks in their hair and if we get
the other girls to help us, perhaps by watching real closely, we can
find him."

"And I thought, too, we might send her some flowers after a few days
without any name or any sign on them where they came from. She'll be
dreadfully excited and curious and then in a week or so we can send some
more----"

"Aren't flowers very expensive?" put in Jerry. Gyp understood her
concern; Jerry had very little spending money.

"I know--Pat and I'll buy the flowers and maybe some of the others will
help, and you write some verses to go with them, Jerry."

Though to write verses would, ordinarily, to Jerry be a most alarming
task, she was glad of anything that she could do to help Miss Gray and
assented eagerly.

Peggy Lee was enlisted in the cause, and the next day the conspirators
made a trip to the florist's shop. They were dismayed but not
discouraged by the exorbitant price of flowers; they scornfully
dismissed the florist's suggestion of a "neat" little prim