hing it must be now.
"To-day I looked at a room over there, near the school."

"In Brooklyn, good Lord! Why, nobody goes to Brooklyn except to be
buried! You can't mean Brooklyn! What do you want to be leaving here for
anyway?"

Kathleen got off the bed. As Hertha remained silent she moved out of the
little alcove. "Of course, if you're wanting to go, Hertha, it's not for
me to keep you."

"I want to talk with you about it. I haven't decided yet, and I don't
want to leave you, but there're so many things to think about."

Hertha's voice was plaintive, for she was almost in tears.

"I suppose it's that long-legged southern chap. Well, if it's a man
trying to get you away, there's no hope for me. But how you can like
that thin-nosed, sallow-faced son of a snuff-dipping mother is beyond
me."

Kathleen did not see Hertha's flushed cheeks, but she felt her silent
protest. Remembering the words of the Major, the call of youth and
springtime, she went back and again seated herself by Hertha's side.

"It's a shame they should be calling me out to-night and you and me
needing a long talk together. But that's my life and perhaps it's lonely
here for a young girl like you."

"I am lonely," Hertha declared, "when you are away."

It was the first time she had confessed to her dislike to be so much by
herself. And while she said it she knew that though she might be timid
at being alone she minded more being unable ever to get away from
people. If she went to a boarding-house, perhaps she would never be
really alone. The memory of the Merryvale household and its paying
guests came back to her, and she tried to recall whether the northern
women who stopped there were able to secure the privacy that she craved.

"With the summer, dear," Kathleen was saying, "I'm not likely to be away
so much and there's many good times we could have together. Away to the
country, perhaps, for a Sunday, or down at the beach where the waves
knock you off your feet one second and pound the breath out of you the
next."

Hertha gave a little rueful laugh. "That must be jolly," she assented.

"And as for business schools that will fit you for a job in two months
or two days, according to the cash you've got, there's as many of them
in New York, I'll be bound, as in Brooklyn. You don't have to cross the
river to go to school."

"No."

"I asked Billy to bring one of the fellows who works where he does
around with him next Sunday. He's a nice l