The first week of school passed very rapidly, and by the time Friday afternoon came, Marian felt quite at home with her schoolmates. She had finally decided that Ruth would be her best friend next to Patty, whom she always held in reserve as filling her needs exactly, when they should meet. Miss Dorothy had written to her little sister and Marian was daily expecting a letter herself from Patty, a letter which should mark the beginning of their friendship. She was rather shy of the girls at first, for she had scarcely known childish comrades, and her old-fashioned ideas and mature way of speaking often brought a laugh from the others, but her shyness soon wore off and she quickly acquired a style of speech at which her grandparents sometimes frowned, for it included some bits of slang which had never found their way into the brick house before.It was Miss Dorothy's doing which made the way easier for the little girl, for she argued nobly in behalf of Marian's needing young companions to keep her like a normal child. She even appealed to the family doctor who promptly sided with her, and maintained that Marian would be better bodily, if she lived a more rough and tumble life. So, because her grandparents really did care for her, absorbed as they were in their grown-up affairs, Marian was allowed more freedom than ever before and was ready to take advantage of it.

Miss Dorothy had gone up to town to do some shopping this first Saturday of the term, and Marian bethought herself of its being baking day at Mrs. Hunt's, so, as this was always one place she could always go without asking permission, she simply stopped at the sitting-room door and announced: "I am going down to Mrs. Hunt's, grandma."

Mrs. Otway, at work upon a financial report, did not look up from her columns of figures, but merely nodded in reply and Marian ran on down the street between the double rows of trees, till she came to Mrs. Hunt's. This time it was the odor of baking which greeted her as she advanced toward the kitchen, and Mrs. Hunt was in the act of taking a pan of nicely browned cookies from the oven as her visitor appeared.

"Well, well, well," she exclaimed. "Just in time. Seems to me school keeps some folks amazingly busy. I've not seen you for a week, have I? But there, I'm glad enough you're turned out at last. Let me see how you look. School agrees with you; I can see that. Sit down there on the step and eat a cookie; it's warm inside the kitchen with the fire going. Now tell me all about it. How do you like Miss Robbins? I hear she's liable to be as popular as any teacher we've had. How do the grans take to her?" Marian and Mrs. Hunt always spoke of Mr. and Mrs. Otway as the grans.

"They like her," returned Marian between bites of cookie. "She is perfectly fine, Mrs. Hunt, and she's got a little sister just my age; her name's Martha, but they call her Patty, and she's going to write to me, and, oh, Mrs. Hunt, I have a secret to tell you, but you mustn't breathe it. Cross your heart you won't."

"Cross your heart," repeated Mrs. Hunt. "Where did you get that? I never heard you say that before."

"All the girls say it."

"Of course they do, and you're getting to be one of the girls, I see. Well, I'm glad of it. And what's the mighty secret?"

"You won't tell?"

"Not I." Mrs. Hunt emphasized her promise by bringing down her cake-cutter firmly on the dough she had spread on the board before her.

"Well, it's this: I'm learning to write on the typewriter, and I'm going to write a letter to papa myself."

"Well, I vow to man! Isn't that a trick worth knowing? Won't he be pleased?"

"Do you think he really will? I didn't know, for you see he has written to me only once a year just as he does to grandpa and grandma, and I have never been sure that he really cared very much about me."

"Listen to the child," exclaimed Mrs. Hunt, shaking her head. "Who'd have thought she gave it any thought one way or the other. Don't you believe that he doesn't care. I knew Ralph Otway before you were born, and I can tell you that when he gets to knowing that you've thought enough about him to want to write to him he will write to you often enough. He's got it into his head that you are as well off not hearing from him oftener, and besides he feels that as a lone widower he can't take as good care of you as his mother, a woman, can do, and he's just steeled his heart to endure what he thinks is best for you without thinking of what he would like for himself. Don't you suppose he would a thousand times rather have you with him than to live off there by himself?"

"No, I didn't think so," replied Marian, with the idea that somehow she had said something she ought not. "But, Mrs. Hunt, if he does care, why doesn't he come over and get me?"

"Just as I told you; because he thinks you are better off here with your kith and kin. What would you do all day alone, with him off at his business and you by yourself in lodgings or a boarding-house, I'd like to know. He wouldn't want to send you to boarding-school, for then you'd not be so well off as where you are. Oh, no, don't you be getting it into your head that your father doesn't care for you." Mrs. Hunt made decided plunges at the yellow dough at each attack leaving behind a scalloped circle. "How I talk," she said as she deftly lifted the cookies into a pan, "but my tongue runs away with me sometimes. When do you think you'll be smart enough to get that letter off?"

"Oh, in another week, perhaps. Miss Dorothy thinks I will."

"Humph! that's quick enough work. Here, don't you want to go down into the garden and get me a few tomatoes? I thought I'd stew some for dinner, and I can't leave my baking very well."

This was something Marian always liked to do, so she took the little round basket Mrs. Hunt handed her and was soon very busy among the tomato vines. She was watching a big yellow butterfly bury itself in an opening flower when she heard a voice on the other side of the fence, say: "Hello!" and looking up she saw Marjorie Stone and Alice Evans smiling at her.

"What are you doing?" asked Marjorie. "I didn't know you lived here."

"I don't," said Marian going toward her. "I just came to see Mrs. Hunt and I am getting some tomatoes for her. Most everything else has gone. There used to be lovely currants and raspberries over there, and there were a few blackberries."

"We know where there are some blackberries still, don't we, Alice?" said Marjorie.

"Yes, they have ripened late; they're not so very big, but we are going to get them. We're going to take our lunch with us and gather all we can find."

"If you bring some lunch you can go too," said Marjorie amiably to Marian.

"Oh, is it a picnic?"

"Just a little one. Three or four of us were going, but two of the girls can't go. One has to stay at home and take care of the baby, and the other has gone to town with her mother, but maybe Alice's big sister, Stella, will go with us."

"Is it very far?"

"Not so very. We've often been there. You go get your lunch and put it in a tin bucket, or a basket, so you will have something to carry your blackberries home in. We'll wait here for you if you hurry."

Much excited, Marian ran back to the house. This came of having schoolmates. A picnic this very first Saturday, and the blackberrying thrown in. She set down the little basket on the kitchen table and exclaimed, "Oh, Mrs. Hunt, what do you think? Marjorie Stone and Alice Evans want me to go on a picnic with them. They're going blackberrying and it isn't very far, but I'll have to take my lunch in something to gather the blackberries in, and——" She paused for breath.

"Just those two going?"

"No, Alice's big sister, Stella, is going."

"Oh!" Mrs. Hunt nodded her head in a satisfied way.

"Do you think I would have time to go home?" Marian asked anxiously. "They said they were in a great hurry."

"What is the use of your going home? I can put you up a little lunch easy as not. Here's these cookies, and I've baked turnovers, too. There's a basket of nice good apples in the pantry; you can have one of those, and I'll whisk together some sandwiches in the shake of a sheep's tail."

"Oh, that would be perfectly fine. Do you think grandma would mind?""She oughtn't to. She's done the same thing lots of times herself."

"Oh!" This fact certainly set things all right, for surely no grown person could be so absolutely unjust and inconsistent as to blame a child for doing what she had done, not once, but often herself. So Marian was quite assured, and smilingly watched Mrs. Hunt's kind hands pack a lunch for her.

"There now," said the good woman when she had tucked a red napkin over the top of the basket. "Run along and have a good time. I guess all the quarts of blackberries you get won't make many jars of jam, but you'll have just as much fun. If I get the chance I'll run up to your grandma's or send word that you won't be home to dinner. Maybe I'll see your grandpa as he comes back from the post-office."

And so, well content, Marian sped forth to join the girls who were waiting.

"Are you going?" they asked. "You didn't have to go home, did you?"

"No, Mrs. Hunt put up a lunch for me. She is always so very kind."

"What have you got?" asked Marjorie eagerly."Three sandwiches, ham ones, and six cookies, two turnovers and an apple." Marian enumerated the articles with pride.

"I guess that will be enough," said Marjorie, condescendingly. "But you will have to cut the turnovers in two so they will go around; we haven't any, you know."

Marian felt somewhat abashed, and thought that Marjorie was not very polite. She would not have inquired into the contents of their lunch baskets for the world. However, she trotted along very contentedly till they reached Alice's home where Stella was to join them. "I found some crackers and cheese, and there are two slices of bread and jam," announced this older girl as she came out. "I think perhaps we can find an apple tree along the way. Did you bring anything, Marjorie?"

"Yes, I have something in here." Marjorie swung her tin bucket in air.

"Then we'd better start," continued Stella. "Who is that with you? Oh, I see, it is Marian Otway. Hello, Marian."

"How do you do?" said Marian. She had never seen Stella except from across the church. She considered her quite a young lady, although she was only fourteen, but she was tall for her age and had an assured air.

The weather was warm, as it often is in early September, and as they trudged along the dusty road with the noonday sun beating down upon them, Marian thought it was anything but fun. Stella, however, kept encouraging them all by telling them it was only a little further, and that when they came to a certain big tree they would sit down and eat their lunch. The tree seemed a long way off, but at length it was reached, and the four sat down to rest under its shade.

"Oh, I do wish I had a drink," sighed Alice. "I am so thirsty."

"So am I," exclaimed the others.

"Maybe there is a spring near," said Stella. "There is a house over yonder; perhaps they could let us have some milk."

"But we haven't any money to pay for it," said Alice.

"So we haven't. Well, we'll have to ask for water. It was very stupid to think of only being hungry and not of being thirsty. We could have brought some milk as well as not. Let us have your tin bucket, Marjorie, and you and Alice go over and ask for some water."