t a good deal of money to Mr. Mays, and ten thousand
dollars to Roxy. So her mother and the other sister and she sailed the
last week in August. Of course Roxy is in high feather. And Miss Reid
and Miss Gertrude Aldred have gone to Rome under the care of a friend of
Mrs. Aldred's. Two of the girls have gone to Leipsic. Oh, dear, I wonder
if _we_ will ever go abroad?"

"It is a lovely dream. I do hope to compass it some time," and a longing
light filled Helen's eyes.

"And there is so much to see here. We had a cousin of father's visiting
us who had spent seven years in Mexico, and knew President Diaz quite
well. He tells such interesting stories about the wonders there, the
discoveries and the traces of people who must have lived a thousand or
perhaps more years ago. Then my brother has a friend who is deep in
those marvelous exhumations in Arizona. Presently we shall be a famous
country, if we haven't castles and cathedrals."

Helen's trunk came up and she began to unpack. There were some new
gowns.

"Are you going in long skirts?" inquired Daisy.

"Not this winter. I should like to be 'only a girl' ever so long," and
Helen smiled dreamily. "It seems as if I had been only a very little
girl thirteen years or so, and now I want to be just a big girl.
Womanhood looks so strange and mysterious to me. There are so many
things to be decided then, and now you can hover about the edge, just
slip into the surf of that river called the future and then draw back.
You don't have to cross it. But some day you must, and shoulder its
responsibilities."

"How queer and solemn that sounds. And I am a whole year older, and I
ought to be ever so much ahead of you."

"You are in Latin and French. I studied up some. I met a delightful
woman,--well I saw her last summer, and oddly enough she remembered me
from the books I read,--that I never should have known about but for
Mrs. Van Dorn. She is the librarian. And we have had such a nice time.
She is a college graduate, and she has inspired me with a longing to go.
But then I want everything. Travel and music and churches and ruins and
histories of nations that have been swept away, and to climb the
pyramids, and to ask the Sphinx her mighty question----"

"_Your_ mighty question as to what secret is in her ponderous brain?"

Both girls laughed heartily, merrily.

"Well, I must say, Helen Grant, your wishes comprise enough for a
lifetime! And you have left out Paris, and that qu