, I'll work
harder than ever so that my wish will come true. Well, why do you
laugh?" she asked, looking not only amazed, but rather vexed at Betty,
who could not stop laughing even when she saw that Valerie was far from
thinking it a joke.

"Well, what have I said that is so awfully funny?" she asked sharply.

"Don't be provoked, Valerie," Betty said, but her shoulders shook
although she tried to check her laughter.

"I was only thinking," she continued, "how generous you were to help the
old well out so nicely. Just as soon as you've wished, you'll start
right out to work hard enough to just _make_ the wish come true, well
or no well, and I do believe, if your aunt gives you the ring, you'll
forget how hard you worked, and you'll be saying: 'I do more than half
believe in the wishing-well!'"

Valerie was never long angry, and she laughed as she answered:

"Well, Miss Wise-one, are you going to wish, and then sit back and wait
to see if it 'comes true'?"

"I'll wish just for fun, but I don't believe what she said about the old
well any more than you do, Valerie Dare. We'd be silly to even think
that an old well had any power to grant wishes," Betty said, but Valerie
laughed again.

"Then why did we bother to sit on this wall and wish?" she said.

"We might just as well wish while we're waiting along the road."

"Come on!" cried Betty. "You wished on the wall beside the well, and
I'll wish as we walk along, and we'll see which gets what she wished
for."

"All right," agreed Valerie, "but I _do_ hope you'll get yours, Betty."

"I'm as likely to, as if I'd kept sitting by the well," Betty said, "for
I wish for what just _couldn't_ happen."

"Why Betty Chase! Why don't you wish for something that you've a
_chance_ of getting," said Valerie, stopping squarely in front of Betty.

"Because I have everything I want but one thing," was the quiet reply.

"And that one thing is--what?" queried Valerie.

"I love Dorothy Dainty, and I don't want to say 'good-by' to her when
school closes. I'd like to be where she is this summer, but that
_couldn't_ be. You see our summer home is lovely, and we go there every
year. Father and mother like the country better than the shore, but I
like the beach, and the water best. Dorothy and Nancy will go home to
Merrivale, but whether they spend the summer there, or go away to some
other place, it won't make much difference to me. It's not likely to
happen that they'll come to the