“No Ice Carnival, girls,” mourned Betty. “Of course we’ll not have any with just those infants at Grant Academy this year.”

“All the more time for other things, then,” said Eloise. “It will be warm before we know it. I have so many things to do, that if I stopped to count them up I would have to leave school in self defense! There is doing our ‘bit’ with the knitting and everything right along, of course, and I want to have time for canoeing and the other athletics this spring. Hilary, I am going to have as long a bird list as you, or perish in the attempt! Isabel, our canoe is going to beat in the senior-junior race.”

“Is it?” inquired Isabel in a tone which implied doubt. “Try it.”

Isabel was taking a butterfly pin out of a tiny box. She was the secretary and treasurer of the Psyche Club, and had ordered this pin for Betty, who had lost hers several months before. Not a whole year, her senior year, could she do without her butterfly pin, which stood for so much of Greycliff happiness and delightful friendship.

“How did Betty happen to lose her pin?” asked Eloise. “I wonder where it could be.”

“That is what Betty wonders. She doesn’t even know when it was lost, because, you know we keep our pins pinned on something for days at times. She thought that she took it off a wool frock to pin on a silk one, but she has hunted her dresses over, besides bureau drawers and every crack about the suite.”

It seemed that Greycliff days had wings. The girls complained that teachers in every course demanded more and more. “Patty thinks that we are taking nothing but her Latin and English,” remarked Cathalina, “and Dr. Carver is going to have us cover more ground this year in what is college Sophomore Latin than any class ever did. She said so! But she actually complimented the class on doing it, can you imagine it, Isabel?”

“I can not. I should pass into unconsciousness if I heard anything of the sort from her. But I am sorry for her. She had an awful time at first because she studied in Germany and couldn’t believe that they started things, and then she was more than half in love with Prof. Schaefer they say, and mad because the girls didn’t sign up for German, but after a talk with Miss Randolph she came around and there has been a distinct coolness between her and Prof. Schaefer of late.”

“Really, Isabel?” asked Hilary. “Cathalina and I once thought that it would be a match.”

“Once Miss Randolph told me a little about her life, girls,” said Cathalina, “and she has had a pretty hard experience, Miss Randolph said. It did not make me think any more of her methods, but has helped me to stand it. And she certainly does know what she is talking about. There are lots of different people in this world, aren’t there? I don’t suppose I would have known it if I hadn’t come to Greycliff, but it will make me interested in people outside the family circle now.”

“To go back to our work,” said Hilary, “our music director says that there never has been such a concert as he expects to have the girls give this Commencement, when all the parents and everybody can be here. The practice is taking a good deal of time, but it is such fun! There is the Glee Club and the double quartette and the orchestra—all practicing the most beautiful things! Lil is to sing as her second number one of her own songs, and Phil is writing the accompaniment for her now, in between times at camp. Aunt Hilary is coming this time to see her little namesake perform!”

“O, I heard a red-winged blackbird today, girls,” said Juliet, “down by the river near that place where the cattails grow. They will be nesting there.”

“That is fine,” said Hilary. “I must go down there; I haven’t one on my list yet. I was just thinking of how wonderful it all is this morning when I first woke up. I heard a bluebird and a robin singing, and I began to think about all the wings starting North on the spring migration. The Bible says something about the land of the ‘rustling of wings’ and that is what is happening now. Can’t you imagine how it is, some warm night when the wood warblers are flying, tiny little things with their weeny wings, and then the big birds, like the water birds. Then—presto—the sun comes up and lights up all the bright colors, the scarlet tanager and the rose-breasted grosbeak, the indigo bunting and the bluebird, the orange and black of the Blackburnian warbler, the cardinal,—come on, I’m going to get my glass and go down to the beach!”

“All right, Hilary, but remember that your flight of imagination looked forward into May. Don’t expect to find a rose-breasted grosbeak this afternoon.”

“No. Isabel, my imagination is subject to a little common sense. Where’s my note book, Lilian?”

“I put it with mine, right on the book-shelf by our geology notes. If you will wait a few minutes till I get this letter to Phil finished, I will come too.”

“If it is not too long,” replied Hilary, “but I know what happens when you strike a new vein of thought and remember some more things to tell him. Isabel, you might tell Virgie that we are going out to see what we can see. Perhaps she will want to go, too.”

The work of the field classes began a little later than usual that spring. Hilary, because her work and interest in this line had been a little more persistent than that of any others, was put in charge of one bird section. The classes went out in small groups, from the very nature of the study, for few birds would be seen by any large company, except at a distance. Cathalina’s generosity had long since supplied the “bird library” with the finest reference books and some strong field glasses and binoculars. A number of the girls had their own glasses, ranging in power from that of an opera glass to the strong lenses of various sorts. Outside of Lakeview Suite, probably the most enthusiastic bird “hunters” were Eloise and Isabel, and in friendly fashion, whenever any one saw a new bird for the season, word was passed around. Isabel dubbed her particular section “The Stealthy Prowlers.”

By the time the girls were ready to go to the beach, the party numbered six, Hilary and Eloise in the lead, Betty and Cathalina strolling along together, Isabel conducting an investigation by herself, and Lilian running down the hill last.

“It is almost too windy to see anything today,” said Isabel, looking at the scudding grey clouds above tossing waters.

“Let’s start up along the river. The little birds will hide away from the wind and the banks there along under the woods ought to have a number of good ‘finds.’ We ought to see some sandpipers there if nothing else. How chilly those gulls look. Some day we’ll row out to the breakwater and take down the different varieties we always see there every spring.”

“The Island is better, if you are willing to wait until the first picnic.”

Betty was looking off to see if by any chance the same government boat which had brought Donald before might appear upon the horizon. So suddenly had he come before, that she was prepared for anything. But no smoke from passing steamer could be seen in any direction.

“Poor old Betty,” said Eloise, with a little smile. “‘He cometh not, she said, I’m a-weary, a-weary,’—Tennyson!”

“My bonny is over the ocean,” began Lilian, then with a sober look added, “They’ll all be over soon enough!”

Betty did not mind the teasing, but blew a kiss in fun out to the waves, and turned with the rest where the little river joined the lake. They picked their way along over wet sand and mud in places, as at times they were forced to ascend the bank.

“Here’s where the doughty Cathalina and Hilary rescued the sinking Isabel,” said Eloise, as they passed the famous spot. “More than once have I had it pointed out to me. In after years, when Isabel is famous for,—what are you going to be famous for, Isabel?”

“Debating in Congress,” replied Isabel without hesitation.

“All right,—in after years when the famous Senator Isabel Hunt startles the country with her eloquence, Greycliff will put a tablet here,——”

“And on it will be written,” continued Betty in grandiloquent style, “‘Saved for Greycliff and her country’!”

“Sh-sh!” whispered Isabel. “I saw something fly up stream, and I heard a spotted sandpiper call.”

The girls stopped to listen. The lyre-like notes of a red-winged blackbird came first to their ears, then a meadow lark sang from the fields behind Greycliff. A few grackles flew down to the river’s edge and walked in dignified fashion near the shallows.

“O, look!” exclaimed Cathalina, pointing to a little hollow ahead of them. “We shall find some anemones and bloodroot there I’m sure. Don’t you remember last year they were there, and just beyond is that lovely violet patch, if they are out yet.”

“Wait a minute, Cathalina,” said Hilary in a low tone, “what is that scratching away in those leaves? Could it be the ground robins?”

The glasses were all focused upon the little hollow before them, Hilary’s face growing brighter as she watched. She and Eloise turned to each other and in one breath whispered “Fox sparrows!”

“I’m so glad,” whispered Lilian. “I missed seeing them last year, for some reason. Look, there is a flock of them.” Several more of the pretty brown sparrows flew from across the river and joined those which the girls were watching.

“Can’t he scratch for a living, though?” remarked Isabel pointing to one that was making the leaves fly. “See him fly around with that reddish tail. What’s that little chap over there?—Oh, a junco. You are very pretty, sir, but I’ve got you on my list already and I am seeking other prey! However, I like your pink bill and your black hood and mantle.”

Just at that point, Betty lost her footing and stepped sidewise into a pool of water, exclaiming a little over her wet feet. With a little whir, the fox sparrows, and a small flock of juncos which had been hidden from sight, rose from the old leaves and fresh green of the new plants to fly away. But from across the stream there came a clear little carol which was some fox sparrow’s “goodbye,” so Cathalina said.

“I had no idea that there were so many juncos there,” said Lilian. “I was watching the fox sparrows when all at once those whisking white tail feathers came into view.”

“It’s the vesper sparrow that has those white feathers on the sides of the tail, too,—isn’t it, Hilary?” asked Betty.

“Yes, and other birds, too, but it is easy at a quick glance to identify these little birds that way, as they fly.”

“You’d better get back to the Hall, Betty,” said Cathalina. “We don’t want any cases of tonsillitis in Lakeview Suite. Come on, want a hand up?”

“No, thanks, Cathie, I’m still able to climb up a hillside.”

The girls scrambled up the hillside that led to the wood, while as they did so, Lilian called their attention to the sound of an airplane humming above them. “Another kind of a bird,” said she, “a humming bird.”

“More like a night hawk,” said Isabel, “circling around up there. Somebody is practicing. Perhaps it is the hydroplane.”

“Oh, no. That is a regular plane,—see?”

Out over the lake, back over the fields behind Greycliff, out of sight up river, behind the woods, appearing again and coming toward them, then turning away in the direction of “White Wings,” the plane finally disappeared entirely from view.

“I suppose it is from one of the aviation fields,” said Lilian. “I haven’t gotten used to them yet. I’m so glad that Phil isn’t in the aviation. It’s just as dangerous practicing as it is in battle.”

“Oh, no, not quite,” said Isabel. “There are a few more chances to fall under fire. There’s where I’d be if I were a soldier, sailing over the clouds,” and Isabel’s hand made all sorts of gyrations in illustration.

The girls became rather more sober in the thoughts of their brothers and friends that came to them with the suggestions of aviation and the camps. They hurried toward and into the Hall, Betty to change her shoes, and the other girls to hunt up the evening papers with the latest news from the front. Mail, also, was delivered, and Lilian received a long package from the camp where Philip was located.

“It’s the music manuscript, Hilary; let’s go into the society hall and try it over before dinner. I am crazy to see what sort of an accompaniment Phil has written. O, dear! If I could only hear him play it!—his beautiful hands and voice,—sometimes, Hilary, I think I can’t stand having him go to France and maybe——”

“Don’t say it, Lilian,” said Hilary, with a tender and understanding look. “We have to meet it. Someway I think our boys will come back.”

Lilian looked at Hilary’s sweet, strong face and felt comforted by her friend’s faith.