scientiousness, and Peggy with the enjoyment which
converts industry into an art. As for Amy, she wandered about the
pasture always sure that the next spot was a more promising field of
operations than the nearer. She was some distance from the others when
her search was rewarded by the discovery of a clump of bushes unusually
full.

"There!" exclaimed Amy triumphantly, as if answering the argument of her
almost empty pail. "I knew I'd find them thicker. Peggy--oh, Peg--"

Her summons broke off in a startled squeal. There was a rustle on the
other side of the bushes, and Amy took a flying leap which landed her on
her knees with her overturned pail beside her. She screamed again, and a
girl in a gingham dress and sunbonnet of the same material, ran out from
behind the leafy screen.

"Oh, I'm sorry if I frightened you," she exclaimed. "I hope you're not
hurt."

Amy scrambled to her feet with a sigh of immense relief.

"No, indeed, and I shouldn't have been scared only I thought it was a
cow."

The grave young face set in the depths of the sunbonnet broke into a
smile that quite transformed it.

"Even if it had been," the girl suggested, "it wouldn't have been so
very dangerous, you know."

"Maybe not." Amy's tone was dubious. And then as Peggy and Ruth came
hurrying to the spot, she turned to give them an explanation of the
scream which had summoned them in such haste. All four laughed together,
and the girl in the sunbonnet had an odd sense of being well acquainted
with the friendly invaders.

"I suppose introductions are in order," Amy rattled on, "but, you see, I
don't know your name."

"I'm Lucy Haines."

"Well, this is Peggy Raymond, our mistress of ceremonies, and this is
Ruth Wylie, who thinks everything that Peggy does is exactly right, and
I'm the scatterbrain of the lot."

Lucy Haines looked a little bewildered as she met the girls' smiles,
when Peggy came to the rescue. "A crowd of us are in Mrs. Leighton's
cottage for the summer, and this is our first berrying. Don't you think
I've had good luck?" She tilted her pail to show its contents, and Lucy
Haines admired as in duty bound.

"Let's see how you've done," suggested Amy, and Lucy brought from the
other side of the raspberry bushes a large-sized milk-pail so heaping
full that the topmost berries looked as if they were contemplating
escape. The girls exclaimed in chorus.

"You don't mean that you've picked those all yourself," cried Amy,
r