“And after commencement packing,” said Madeline Ayres sadly, “and that’s no joke either, I can tell you.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Babe airily. “Give away everything that you can’t sell, and you won’t be troubled. That’s what I’ve done.”

“I couldn’t give up my dear old desk,” said Rachel soberly, “nor my books and pictures.”

“Oh, I’ve kept a few little things myself,” explained Babe hastily, “just to remember the place by.”

“My mother wanted to stay and help me,” laughed Nita. “She thought if we both worked hard we might get through in a day.”

“Mary Brooks did hers in two hours,” announced Katherine, “and I guess I’m as bright as little Mary about most things, so I’m not worrying.”

“Isn’t it time to start for class-meeting?” asked Betty, coming out on the piazza with Roberta.

“See them walk off together arm in arm,” chuckled Bob softly, “just as if they knew they were going to be elected our alumnÆ president and secretary respectfully.”

“Don’t you mean respectively, Bob?” asked Helen Adams.

“Of course I do,” retorted Bob, “but I’m not obliged to say what I mean now. I’m an alum. I can use as bad diction as I please and the long arm of the English department can’t reach out and spatter my mistakes with red ink.”

The election of officers didn’t take long. It had all been cut and dried the night before, and the nominating committee named Betty for president and Shylock for secretary without even going through the formality of retiring to deliberate. Then Katherine moved that the surplus in the treasury be turned over to “our pet philanthropy, the Students’ Aid,” and Carlotta Young inquired anxiously whether the first reunion was to be in one or two years.

“In one,” shouted the assembly to a woman, and the meeting adjourned tumultuously. But nobody went home, in spite of the packing that clamored for attention.

“Good-bye, you dear old thing!”

“See you next June for sure. I’m coming back then, if I do live away out in Seattle.”

“You’re going to study art in New York, you say? Oh, I’m there very often. Here, let me copy that address.”

“Going abroad for the summer, you lucky girl? Well, rather not! I’m going to tutor six young wigglers into a prep. school.”

“Wasn’t last night fun? Don’t you wish we could have it all over again,—except the midyears and the papers for English novelists.”

“Good-bye!”

“Good-bye!”

“Good-bye!”

But these weren’t the good-byes that came hardest; those would be said later in the dear, dismantled rooms or at the station, for very close friends would arrange to meet again there. But the close friendships would be kept up in letters and visits, whereas these casual acquaintances might never again be renewed.

“I’ve seen you nearly every day for three years,” Madeline Ayres told little Miss Avery, whose name came next to hers on the class-list, “and now you’re going to live in Iowa and I’m going to Italy. The world is a big place, isn’t it?”

But Nita Reese thought it was surprisingly small when she found that Emily Davis was going to teach French in the little town where she lived, and Betty got a great deal of comfort from the fact that four other 19— girls lived in Cleveland.

“Though I can’t believe it’s really over,” Betty confided to Bob. “I don’t feel a bit like an alum.”

“That’s because you still look just like a freshman,” returned Bob, unfeelingly. “I’ll bet you a trolley-ride to any place you choose that you’ll be taken for one before you leave Harding.”

Sure enough Betty, hurrying across the campus a moment later to intercept the man who had promised to crate her desk and then never come for it, was stopped by a timid little sub-freshman with her hair in a braid, who inquired if she was going to take the “major French” examination, and did she know whether it came at eleven or twelve o’clock?

“So we’re all got to go off on a trolley-ride,” shouted Bob jubilantly, and though Betty protested and called Helen to witness that she hadn’t promised Bob any trolley-ride whatever, everybody agreed that they ought to have one last picnic somewhere before they separated. So they all hurried home to do what Katherine called “tall strides of work,” and at four o’clock they were waiting, with tempting-looking bags and bundles tucked under their arms, for a car.

“We’ll take the first one that comes,” Bob decided, “and go until we see a nice picnic-y place.”

Generally no one place would have pleased everybody, but to-day no one said a word against Bob’s first choice,—a steep, breezy hillside, with a great thicket of mountain laurel in full bloom near the summit and a flat rock, shaded by a giant elm-tree, for a table.

It was such a comical supper, for each girl had obeyed Bob’s haphazard instructions to bring what she liked best. So Roberta had nothing but ginger-snaps and Babbie solemnly presented each guest with a bottle of olives. Madeline had brought strawberries with sugar to dip them in, and Helen, Betty and Eleanor discovered to their amazement that they had all chosen chocolate Éclairs.

“It’s not a very substantial supper,” said Madeliner “but we can stop at Cuyler’s on our way back.”

“For a substantial ice,” jeered Bob.

“Who’s hungry anyway after last night?” asked Nita.

“I am,” declared Eleanor. “They took away my salad before I was through with it, and K. stole my ice.”

“Well, you’re growing fat,” Katherine defended herself, “and you’ve got to save your lovely slenderness until after Mary’s wedding. She’ll tell everybody that you’re the college beauty and you must live up to the reputation or we shall be undone.”

Katherine knew that she couldn’t come on from Kankakee for that wedding, and Helen and Rachel knew that they couldn’t either, though they lived nearer. And Madeline was sailing on Saturday for Italy, “to stay until daddy’s paint-box runs out of Italian colors.” But they didn’t talk about those things at the picnic, nor on the swift ride home across the dark meadows, nor even at Cuyler’s, which looked empty and deserted when they tramped noisily in and ordered their ices.

“Everybody else is too busy to go on picnics,” said Bob.

“We always did know how to have the best kind of times,” declared Babbie proudly.

“Of course. Aren’t we ‘Merry Hearts’?” queried Babe. “Being nice to freaks was only half of being a ‘Merry Heart.’”

“Why, girls,” cried Nita excitedly, “as long as we didn’t give away the ‘Merry Hearts,’ we can go on being them, can’t we?”

“We couldn’t stop if we tried,” said Madeline. “Remember, girls, two is a ‘Merry Hearts’ quorum. Whenever two of us get together they can have a meeting.”

They said good-night with the emphasis strongly on the last syllable, and went at the neglected packing in earnest. Betty’s train didn’t go until nearly ten the next morning, but Helen left at nine and Madeline and Roberta ten minutes later, so there wouldn’t be much time for anything but the good-byes, that, do what you might, could not be put off any longer.

But after all they were gay good-byes. Helen Adams, to be sure, almost broke down When she kissed Betty and whispered, “Good-bye and thank you for everything.” But the next minute they were both laughing at K.’s ridiculous old telescope bag.

“It’s a long rest and a good meal of oats the poor beastie shall have at the end of this trip,” said Katherine. “Ladies, behold the preceptress of the Kankakee Academy. Father telegraphed me yesterday that I’ve got the place, and I hereby solemnly promise to buy a respectable suit-case out of my first month’s salary.”

“Oh, you haven’t any of you gone yet, have you?” asked Babbie Hildreth, hurrying up with Eleanor and Madeline. “You see Babe kept more things than she thought and it was too late to send for another packing-box, so she put them into a suit-case and a kit bag and a hat-box. And the carriage didn’t come for us, so she tried to carry them all from the car, and of course she got stuck in the turn-stile. The girls are getting her out as fast as they can. They sent us on ahead to find you.”

Just as Helen’s train pulled in Bob appeared with the rest of the “Merry Hearts” as escort and a small boy to help with her luggage; and they had a minute all together.

“Well,” said Madeline lightly, “we’re starting out into the wide, wide world at last. I’ll say it because I’m used to starting off to queer places and I rather like it.”

“Here’s hoping it’s a jolly world for every one of us,” said Rachel.

“Here’s to our next meeting,” added Katherine.

“Girls,” said Betty solemnly, “I feel it in my bones that we are going to be together again some time. I don’t mean just for a 19— reunion, but for a good long time.”

“With me teaching in Boston,” laughed Rachel.

“And me teaching in Kankakee,” put in Katherine proudly.

“And Madeline in Italy, and the rest of you anywhere between New York and Denver,” finished Rachel. “It doesn’t look very probable.”

“It’s going to happen though,—I’m sure of it,” persisted Betty gaily.

“Oh, I do just hope so,” said little Helen Adams, stepping on board her train.

“They say that what you want hard enough you’ll get,” said Madeline philosophically. “Come on, Shylock. Don’t any of you forget to send me steamer letters.”

“Wait! we’re going on that train too,” cried Babe, clutching her parcels.

“Babe can’t make connections if we wait,” explained Babbie.

“And she’d get lonely going so far without us,” added Bob.

The four who were left stood where they could wave by turns at the two trains until both were out of sight.

Then Betty caught her three oldest friends into a big, comprehensive hug. “After all,” she said, “whether we ever get together or not, we’ve had this—four whole years of it, to remember all our lives. Now let’s go and get one more strawberry ice before train-time.”