, travelling bags, and nondescript rolls of shawls and steamer
rugs began to make their appearance. Conversations were carried on
across the street in a fashion that might have been annoying if
everybody along the Terrace had not been astir to see the girls off.
Elaine Marshall already dressed for the office, slipped through the
opening in the hedge which separated her home from Peggy's, and took
possession of a shawl-strap and umbrella.

"Of course I'm going to the station with you," she said, replying to
Peggy's look. "There'll be room enough, won't there, if Dorothy sits in
my lap?"

"I guess you'd better hold Aunt Peggy 'stead of me," Dorothy objected
promptly, "'cause I'm going to have a birf-day pretty soon, and I'm
getting to be a big girl." And then she forgot her offended dignity, for
the hacks were in sight.

It was well that these conveyances had arrived early, for the process of
saying good-by was not a rapid one. There were so many kisses to be
exchanged, so many last cautions to be given, so many promises to write
often to be repeated,--reckless promises which if literally fulfilled
would have required the services of an extra mail-carrier for Friendly
Terrace--so many anxious inquiries as to the whereabouts of somebody's
suitcase or box of luncheon, to say nothing of Amy's discovery at the
last minute that she had left her railway ticket in the drawer of her
writing desk, that for a time the outlook for ever getting started was
gloomy indeed. But at last they were safely stowed away, and while the
girls threw kisses in the direction of upper windows, where dishevelled
heads were appearing, and little groups on doorsteps and porches waved
handkerchiefs, and "Good-by" sounded on one side of the street and then
on the other, like an echo gone distraught, the foremost driver cracked
his whip and they were off.

"My gracious me," a pleasantly garrulous old lady said to Mrs. Raymond
half an hour later, "ain't it going to be lonesome without that bunch of
girls. It's the first time I ever knew Friendly Terrace to seem
deserted."

"It will seem a little lonely, I imagine," Mrs. Raymond answered
cheerily, and then she went indoors and found a dark corner where she
could wipe her eyes unseen. But when Dick came around to express his
opinion as to the team that would win the pennant that season, she was
able to give him as interested attention as if two long months were not
to elapse before she saw Peggy again