dash, assuming various kittenish airs and coquetries, even
waving saucily at two cowboys who passed them and turned to stare in
bewilderment at his bizarre costume.

The ride home passed quickly with all this fun. Gertie cheered up and
enjoyed the prairie sights as much as the others. Gertie seemed the same
little girl of three years before except for her added inches, but Katy
had many little grown-up airs and graces and evidently felt the
importance of her fourteen years.

"Almost fifteen," she answered Dr. Morton when he inquired her age. The
two girls were dressed alike still, but Katy managed in some subtle way
to give her clothes a different air from Gertie's. "I don't know just
what the difference is," Marian remarked to Alice a day or two after
their coming, "but Katy is stylish and Gertie demurely sweet in the
self-same dress."

"Personality will out, even in children," Alice replied. "They are both
unusually bright and well brought up, but Katy is ambitious and likes to
cut a bit of a dash, and Gertie doesn't. She is a home and mother girl.
I am amazed that she screwed up her courage to come so far without her
mother. I fear she is already a trifle homesick, though she is enjoying
every minute, and is enchanted with the chickens and pups and all this
outdoor life."

Chicken Little found out these things more gradually. On the long ride
home from the station they chattered busily. All three felt a little shy
for the first minutes but there was so much to tell. Katy had finished
her freshman year in the High School and spun great tales of their
doings. Carol had graduated the week before.

"He is awfully handsome, Chicken Little. All the girls are mashed on
him."

"Are what, Katy?" demanded Alice who had been listening to Dick and Dr.
Morton with one ear open for the girl's confidences. She felt rather
responsible to Mrs. Halford for Katy and Gertie.

Katy colored. "I don't care, Alice, that's what all the girls say, and I
can't be goody-goody and proper all the time."

"All right, Katy, if you think Mother likes that kind of slang, I don't
mind."

Katy didn't say anything further to Alice, but when she resumed her
story to Jane, she said: "Well, I don't care what you call it, but they
all are! And he just smiles in that lazy way of his and doesn't put
himself out for anybody. He didn't even take a girl to the senior party,
and lots of the Senior girls had to go in a bunch because they didn't
have a