e incessant teasing had at last prevailed, and who had
six weeks before experienced the joy of going away to boarding school. It
was not that Phoebe did not love her home, or enjoy the friendship of her
mates, but she had long entertained the idea that a boarding school was
the only school worth attending.

She had wished Randy good luck when she started for Boston, but she could
not stifle a feeling of envy, and it seemed impossible for her to stay
quietly at home attending the district school.

In vain Mrs. Small insisted that Phoebe would be homesick, that Randy was
with friends, while at boarding school all would be strangers. Phoebe
invariably answered,

"Well I'd just like to try it and see how it would seem. I could write
letters home to the girls as Randy does, and I think that would be just
grand."

At last it occurred to Mrs. Small that the best thing for Phoebe would be
to grant her wish.

"I know that she will be homesick before she's been away a week," she said
to her husband, "but she cannot be convinced, and perhaps if we allow her
to try it, she will get all and more than she wants of it, and come home
with a mind to be contented."

So one bright morning Phoebe was driven to the station on her way to a
school for girls which was under the direction of two ladies who were
friends of Mrs. Small. Immediately upon her arrival she sent a note to
her mother in which she told in glowing words of the pleasure of her ride
in the cars, and her reception by the two elderly ladies who presided over
the school.

Then, after a week had passed another letter came the general tone of
which was less cheerful. Then a fortnight slipped by, and a brief letter
told only of her studies, and said not a word of the delights of boarding
school life. Then, as time passed and the mail brought no letter from
Phoebe, her mother became anxious.

"I do hope she's well, and I must say I wish I'd never consented when she
begged to go," said Mrs. Small a dozen times a day, to which her husband
would reply,

"Oh, she's all right. If she was sick they'd let us know. Most likely
she's had 'nough of it, and hates ter say so."

"Well, all the same, if I don't get a letter from her to-day, I'll go
after her to-morrow." Mrs. Small answered, as the wind whistled around the
corner and down the chimney.

While this conversation was in progress at the Small homestead, the same
subject was being discussed at the village school. Because