Such a bustling place as Three Gables was on that Friday morning!

“It seems a pity that you can’t stay till Monday, when college really opens,” said Dr. Helen, pressing out a filmy waist in the dining-room, where the four girls were gathered, setting last stitches.

“But the new girls who have come on early and those who have had to take ‘exams’ are just the ones who need cheering up, and we are the official Comfort Committee, aren’t we, Alice?”

Alice, fastening the thread after sewing in a fresh ruche, nodded. “Got to keep the blues away, or perish trying to,” she said. “And Hannah has to be home before Monday. And Frieda needs a day or two to get settled. Hilda said she’d come back to-day, and they could get their room in order before Sunday. I’m so glad you’re going to room with Hilda, Frieda dear. She’s such a darling child.”

“Is she still given to crushes?” asked Hannah. “She fairly worshiped Lilian Burton’s door-sill when I was there.”

285“Crushes are going out of fashion at Dexter,” said Catherine emphatically. “And one of the reasons I thought it would be good for Hilda to room with Frieda was that Frieda has too much sense to indulge in them, and she will keep Hilda suppressed.”

“Catherine, you have such a positive manner when you talk about Dexter,” said Hannah thoughtfully. “You’ll be House President senior year. O, dear!” for Frieda, in getting up to help Dr. Helen fold up the ironing-board, had brushed by Hannah’s chair, and a fat little button bag rolling to the floor had emptied its contents all over the room.

“Such a lot of buttons, Hannah!” exclaimed Dr. Helen, stooping to help gather them up.

Hannah laughed. “Mamma was so surprised when I came back from Dexter because there were as many in it as when I went, and I told her there were more because I had put in all the buttons that had come off while I was there! And then she was shocked!”

The doorbell rang and Inga came in with a big parcel for Catherine with Grandma Hopkins’ compliments. Catherine opened it, wondering, and the others dropped their work.

“A cake! Did you ever in your life? And I already have Mrs. Graham’s jelly, and Mr. Graham’s bag of nuts, and old Mrs. Hitchcock’s jar of preserves! Mother, how can I ever thank them all?”

286“How can you ever get them all transported to Dexter, is what I’m wondering! Do they always send girls off to school with food for the term, Catherine?” asked Hannah.

“Well, I had cookies and mince pie to take last year, after my trunk was packed. Mother persuaded me to leave the pie, but I was sorry afterward. And one of Polly’s mother’s friends baked a chicken for her to carry all the way to Wellesley! People are so kind! How do you suppose I can carry this cake, though, Mother? It’s such an awkward shape, and I couldn’t pack it with my clothes!”

“Do you remember how Inez brought a pail of honey in her trunk,” put in Alice, “and how it leaked out all over everything she had?”

“I’ll put the cake into a stout hat-box, and fasten a heavy cord and a handle on it, and you can get it there safely, I think. You won’t have to carry it, except just getting on and off the train.” Dr. Helen hurried off to see to that bit of packing, herself.

Bertha, Agnes and Dot, and even Dorcas, found excuses to drop in at the house that morning. Win and Bess promised to be at the train. On the way home from school three or four of Catherine’s Sunday-school children ran in to say good-by. Polly was in and out a dozen times, and Peter and Perdita came together to present a beautiful photograph of themselves in their newest garments and 287 shiniest shoes. Dinner was interrupted by the trunkman’s arrival, and Dr. Harlow had to keep a watchful eye upon each girl to see that she did not forget to eat.

Algernon and Bert came to escort the party to the station, and they started out merrily enough. When they reached the sidewalk, Catherine turned and ran back to the house for a private farewell to her mother, who preferred saying good-by there instead of going to the station. College seemed suddenly robbed of its pleasure, and the length of days between September and Thanksgiving intolerable, but they were used to helping each other be brave, and they blinked away the tears and parted smiling, Catherine turning frequently to wave good-bys till the house was lost in the trees.

It was quite like a reception at the station. While Dr. Harlow attended to ticket-buying, the young people clustered together, talking at random and laughing easily.

“It will be so lonely without you all,” sighed Bess. “All the other college folk will be off by Tuesday at the latest, and here we shall languish!”

“You’ll not have much time to languish if you assist in the kindergarten, Winifred,” said Catherine affectionately. “I’m so glad you are going to do it! You’ll make them sing like little nightingales. O, Bess, you go right by Grandma Hopkins’ on the way home, don’t you? Would you mind running 288 in and telling her that the cake got off all right? I’ll write her, of course, but I know she will want to know. Algernon! You don’t mean it? Miss Ainsworth drawing her own novels! How perfectly delicious! O Max, there you are! What did Mr. Morse say? Was he pleased with the way we handled the paper?”

“Seemed to be. How I wish I were still on, to be able to write up your departure fittingly! I say, who’s that odd little pair over there? They seem to be looking this way as if they wanted something.”

The others turned and Frieda, who had been standing in a dreary silence, listening to the chatter of all these dear boys and girls whom she was leaving perhaps forever, suddenly ran across the platform to where a little old lady in black with a knitted shawl over her head, and a little old man in ill-fitting clothes were standing.

“We came to tell our little friend good-by,” “And to wish her Gute Reise!” They spoke in a kind of duet.

“Here are a few poor blossoms from our garden–”

“That you forget not the old people–”

“And a trifle of Kuchen that I made myself–”

“And this I have carved for you, to put your pens on–”

Frieda, beaming and exclaiming her gratitude, made a pretty picture and the young people, observing her and hearing the rapid German, felt that they 289 were seeing her in a better light than they had before, much as they had already learned to like and enjoy her.

Dot clung to Hannah, and the gentle Agnes, who had found Alice incredibly congenial, walked arm in arm with her a little apart from the others, while Catherine in the center of the group held her father’s arm fast.

They were off at last.

“I thought that child in the back seat was Elsmere,” sighed Catherine, starting up and dropping back again, relieved. “That child actually gets on my mind so that I expect to see him everywhere.”

“Algernon tied him up, or he would have been there. He is a little rascal. It was a relief to me to have Perdita live up to her name and reputation, though,” said Hannah. “I heard about her all summer as a little mischief, and I never saw her do an indecorous thing. I didn’t see her do that.”

“Well, you may mark my words,” said Catherine, “before you have grown many years older you will hear astonishing tales of Perdita Osgood. Peter’s influence will not always keep her in check. Polly told me that yesterday she tried to vaccinate the cat, with a mixture of ground chalk and vinegar! Peter came for help to prevent her!”

“American children are pretty bad, aren’t they, Frieda?” said Alice mischievously, for Frieda’s lips were set sternly.

290“Don’t make her say so,” pleaded Hannah teasingly. “She has made such a beautiful record.”

Frieda flushed a little, but slipped her hand into her pocket and felt there the shape of the little carved frame of Karl’s picture and held her tongue once more. She would not quarrel with Hannah in this last hour for anything!

“Next year,” Hannah said thoughtfully, “I am surely coming to Dexter, and you three are to get the fire-wall room for us, and we’ll live in glory and rapture.”

“If it were only this year!” Alice moaned out the words, and the others sighed with her. The excitement of getting off had died, and they were becoming painfully aware of the separation that was approaching with every revolution of the wheels.

There were other passengers in the car, but they felt peculiarly alone, none the less. It was a curious tie that bound them. They felt that their friendship, so oddly started, had something more vital in it than most school-girl relations. They had all been sorry to leave bright, lovable Polly, but still, so long as they four stayed together, nothing could matter very much.

“O, dear,” sighed Hannah aloud. “I do think I spend all my time getting along without somebody or other!”

“‘We meet so seldom, yet we surely part so often,’” quoted Catherine musingly.

291“O, Catherine, my darling, if you dare begin on that sad Rossetti woman!” cried Alice. “You don’t know how dreadful she is about it, Hannah! She goes about for days with a distant sad look in her eyes and, if she is spoken to suddenly, she says, ‘When I was dead my spirit turned,’ or ‘Does the road wind uphill all the way? Yes, to the very end!’ or something equally doleful. I feel as though some one were dying in the next room, and I do believe I’ll hide the book.”

“It won’t do you any good,” remarked Catherine serenely. “I know almost all of her by heart. But you must admit, Allie, that I do say cheerful things at times. You got sick of the Jumblies last year.”

“They were as idiotic as the Rossetti lady, in another way. We’ll never agree on such subjects, Catherine!”

“Well, anyhow, Catherine isn’t going to read so much poetry this year,” said Hannah.

“And Hannah is going to read more,” rejoined Catherine, at which Hannah made a wry face and set them all laughing.

“Dexter!”

“Already? O, Hannah darling, how can we ever let you go on without us?”

All three were kissing her, but Hannah laughed at their sorrowful faces.

“I’ll go out on the platform with you. And I’ll 292 carry the hat-box, Catrina. Shall you have a spread to-night? Oh! it’s the same dear little, queer little station! And there’s Miss Eliot, and Dy-the Allen! Glory! Glory! Glory! Dy-the, going on this train? Joy and rapture! I should have died of loneliness!”

And Hannah plunged down the steps and threw out her arms to embrace Dy-the, when thud! out fell the bottom of the hat-box, and with it Grandma Hopkins’ lovely cake!

Miss Eliot looked into the distressed blue eyes and laughed.

“Just the same Hannah!” she said. “Dy-the, take good care of her and don’t let her get lost in Chicago. Now, child, introduce me to your Frieda and get back on the train at once.”

“Here she is,” said Hannah, casting one more sad look at the shattered cake, over which a baggage-man had rolled a heavy truck. “And, Frieda, Miss Eliot is the one to go to, always, when you need anything, from shoe-strings to a scolding. O, Catherine, I’m so sorry. I just wanted to help!”

Catherine caught her in a mighty hug.

“Never you mind one minute. It would have given us indigestion, and it was so funny to see it go smash! Give your father my love, won’t you, darling? And Aunt Clara, when you see her.”

“And write from the very first station,” said Alice. “I’m so glad Dy-the is going to be with you.”

“Give Karl my greetings,” said Frieda, holding 293 on to Hannah’s hand tightly. “And O, ever my love to Tante Edith and Uncle Edward!”

“Come, Babe, not another minute,” and Dy-the, little but determined, plucked Hannah from detaining arms, and set her firmly on the platform of the rear car. There, as the train glided out, she stood, her eyes fixed upon the little group of three with arms around each other.

“Good-by! Good-by!” she called and they answered. Then Frieda ran a little nearer, holding out her arms in a pleading gesture, and over the noise of the retreating train their voices rang out together:

“Auf Wiedersehen!”

“Auf glÜckliches Wiedersehen!”