le breaking,
and roads giving way, and rain coming! Suppose one of these had slipped
off the trail--well, it would have stayed where it fell. But
wait--wait!" she said, interrupting herself with her delightful smile.
"You'll love it as we do one of these days!"

"Not," said Paul to himself, as they started back to the house.

After that he saw Miss Chisholm every day, and many times a day; and
she was always busy and always cheerful. She wanted her brother and
Paul to ride with her up to the dam for a swim; she wanted to go to the
woods for ferns for Min's wedding; she was going to make candy and they
could come in. She packed delicious suppers, to be eaten in cool places
by the creek, and to be followed by their smoking and her careless
snatches of songs; she played poker quite as well as they; she played
old opera scores and sang to them; she had jig-saw puzzles for slow
evenings. She could not begin a game of what Mrs. Tolley called
"halmy," with that good lady, without somehow attracting the boys to
the table, where they hung, championing and criticising. Paul was more
amused than surprised to find Mrs. Peavy having tea with the other
ladies on the porch less than a week later. The little mother looked
scared and shamed; but Mrs. Tolley had the baby, and was bidding him
"love his Auntie Gussie," while she kissed his rounding little cheek.
One night, some four weeks after his arrival, Patricia decided that
Paul's room must be made habitable; and she and Alan and Paul spent an
entire busy evening there, discussing photographs and books, and
deciding where to cross the oars, and where to hang the Navajo blanket,
and where to put the college colors. Miss Chisholm, who had the quality
of grace and could double herself up comfortably on the floor like a
child, became thoughtful over the class annual.

"The Dicky, and the Hasty Pudding!" she commented. "Weren't you the
Smarty?"

Paul, who was standing with a well-worn pillow in his hand, turned and
said hungrily:

"Oh, you know Harvard?"

"Why, I'm Radcliffe!" she said simply.

Paul was stupefied.

"Why, but you never SAID so! I thought yours was some Western college
like your brother's!"

"Oh, no; I went to Radcliffe for four years," said she, casually. Then,
tapping a picture thoughtfully, she went on: "There's a boy whose face
looks familiar."

"Well, but--well, but--didn't you love it?" stammered Paul.

"I liked it awfully well," said Patricia. "Alan, yo