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R. Oliver did think differently. He talked very seriously to Fannie for nearly an hour and then Rosemary was sent for to come to the office.

"Rosemary," said the principal, when she appeared, "I know you have a great many last things to do for the fair, but I had to speak to you before the three o'clock dismissal bell. Fannie is ready to apologize to you before your class is dismissed this afternoon."

He had explained to Fannie that she must either publicly apologize to Rosemary or be indefinitely suspended.

"I quite understand," went on Mr. Oliver, "that a belated apology like this can not make up to you for the humiliation you suffered on the night of the dinner, but at least the cooking class will know that you were not at fault. I'm afraid you've had to endure a good deal of teasing on the score of the salty soup.""Oh, I didn't mind, really I didn't!" cried Rosemary quickly. "I'd rather Fannie didn't say anything, Mr. Oliver. Honestly I would."

"I think it will be good for her," said the principal whimsically. "Any girl who can be guilty of a series of such mean little acts as Fannie has confessed to, can not help but benefit by open confession."

"But Mr. Oliver!" Rosemary spoke involuntarily and the color deepened in her face.

"Yes?" he encouraged.

"Nothing—only, if you make Fannie apologize, you are punishing me," brought out Rosemary desperately. "I can't stand it to sit there in class and listen to her. I don't care about the salty soup—at least I don't now; but I know how I should feel to have to get up before the whole class. Please don't make Fannie do it."

The principal tapped his desk thoughtfully with his pencil.

"All right," he said presently. "I certainly have no right to make you uncomfortable, Rosemary, and even less desire. Apologize here and now, Fannie, and I'll excuse you from a class acknowledgment. But only on Rosemary's account, mind you. I think you deserve all the punishment I can give you."Fannie made a faltering and shame-faced apology and then Rosemary was allowed to go back to the kitchen and, as the three o'clock bell sounded, Fannie to go home. She did not come to the fair and her class mates did not see her again till next Monday.

True to his promise, Doctor Hugh took his family to the high school cafeteria for supper and Jack Welles, who was one of the carvers, served them in fine style. Frank Fenton was manager and he insisted on securing the most desirable table for them, much to Doctor Hugh's amusement and Sarah's ill-concealed disgust.

"Why do you smile and say 'How do you do' to him, Rosemary?" she demanded of her sister hotly. "I think it's untruthful to pretend to like people you don't."

"Well it isn't!" flung back Rosemary, who was tired from standing behind the cake table that afternoon. "It's impolite to stick out your tongue at them the way you do!"

"Let me catch you doing that!" Doctor Hugh warned Sarah. "However, children, let's not have any quarrels on a fair night. How late are they going to keep this up, Rosemary?"

"Only till eight o'clock," Rosemary answered. "We have to go back, now, Hugh, and serve at the tables. Are you and Aunt Trudy coming up?"

"Right away," he assured her. "And we'll bring our pocketbooks."

The fair was an unquestionable success. Shirley's bouquets sold swiftly and her tray was replenished again and again that evening and during the next Saturday afternoon. Sarah convulsed her customers by her business-like manner and she did a thriving trade in gold fish.

Winnie came Saturday afternoon and bought a large cake and another for Mrs. Welles who was kept home by a bad cold. The coveted state of bare tables was attained an hour before the fair was scheduled to close Saturday afternoon, and the Eastshore pupils had the pleasant knowledge that they would have more money to turn over to the hospital than in any previous year.

Spring came to Eastshore with fascinating suddenness. One night it was blustery and cold and householders stoked their furnaces with a sigh for the nearly empty coal bins, and the following morning a South wind blew gently, robins chirped on the lawns that showed a faint green tinge and children appeared in school with huge bundles of pussy willows."What do you say to fixing up the garden, Rosemary?" Doctor Hugh suggested, tumbling a sheaf of seed catalogues on the living-room table early in April. "If Mother comes home in June, she'd like to find plenty of flowers growing, wouldn't she?"

"Oh, yes!" Rosemary's response was enthusiastic. "Do let's plan a garden, Hugh, and if it doesn't cost too much, we could have Peter Cooper fix up the lawn. It's rather thin in spots."

The gardening fever seized upon the Willis family and the girls sped home from school to dig and plant and rake and hoe. They recklessly promised Winnie a vegetable garden back of the garage and risked a late frost to jab onion and radish and lettuce seeds into the patch, Peter Cooper, the handy man, spaded up for them. Rosemary acquired a line of golden freckles across her nose and Sarah "got a shade darker every day," according to Winnie.

"I don't care!" the object of her solicitation retorted. "I won't wear a hat—they're hot and stuffy and make my head ache."

"But your mother won't know you," urged Aunt Trudy, who was sewing on the porch in the warm sunshine. "She'll take you for an Indian."

"Oh, I guess my mother'll know me," said Sarah, but all her determination could not keep out a note of doubt in her voice.

The next morning she was late for breakfast. Rosemary called her twice and Winnie went up to see what was the matter.

"She says she's all dressed and she's coming right away," she reported, but no Sarah appeared.

Doctor Hugh went to the foot of the stairs.

"Sarah!" he called in a tone that seldom failed to produce results.

"I'm coming," answered Sarah, and they heard her feet beginning the descent of the stairs.

She came into the dining-room so quietly, that Aunt Trudy glanced at her in surprise.

"Why Sarah!" she gasped, "What in the world have you done to your face?"

"What's the matter with it?" demanded Sarah hardily.

"It looks skinned," said Shirley critically. "You can't go to school looking like that, can she Hugh?"

Rosemary seemed to understand."So that's what you were doing last night!" she said. "I wondered what you were fussing around so for; your light was burning long after I went to bed."

"You've skinned your face, child," insisted Aunt Trudy. "I never saw a worse looking complexion, never. What have you done to yourself?"

Winnie, bringing in the later-comer's oatmeal, took one hasty glance.

"My land, Sarah, have you been walking in your sleep?" she asked in alarm. "You look as though you'd fallen out of a window and landed on your face."

Sarah's eyes filled with tears and two splashed down into her lap. She looked at Doctor Hugh, who nodded to her encouragingly. He had not said a word since her entrance.

"Never mind what they say, Sarah," he told her cheerily, "just tell your old brother about it; looks are not the most important thing in this world, are they?"

"Aunt Trudy said my mother wouldn't know me," explained Sarah, winking back the tears for her poor sore face smarted at the touch of salt. "And I bleached all the brown off, Hugh; only it is so sore.""My dear child!" he said in amazement. Then added, "What did you put on your face, dear?"

"Well, you see, I wanted it to be real white," said Sarah, sure that he would understand, "so I used a cucumber and buttermilk and a lemon and I scrubbed it afterward with pumice stone."

They stared at her a moment in silence.

"It's a wonder you have any face left," declared Winnie. "I missed the buttermilk from the refrigerator."

Doctor Hugh said little then, but he took Sarah into the office and put something healing on the red little face. Then he explained that Aunt Trudy had only been teasing her, and that tan was pleasing to most people because it showed that the owner of the face liked to be outdoors. He allowed Sarah to go with him on his rounds that morning and so saved her the ordeal of going to school to meet the inevitable questions about her face. And, after the girls were in bed that night, he "spoke his mind" as Winnie said, to her and Aunt Trudy.

"I'd rather have her tanned as black as a piece of leather," he concluded, "than to be fussing with 'creams' and bleaching lotions. For goodness sake, don't bother her about her looks for at least ten years. She'll begin soon enough."So Sarah gardened to her heart's content without a hat, and in time the seeds planted made a creditable showing. The doctor spent several evenings figuring and at last decided they might afford to have the house painted. He chose a deep cream color, after many family consultations, combined with a soft brown and when it was finished every one was pleased and sure that the little mother, for whom it was really done, would be equally delighted.

It did seem a waste of sunshine to be obliged to be cooped up in school during such enchanting weather, but it was impossible to convince the trustees of this. The three Willis girls had to be content with spending every hour out of school in the open air. Jack Welles was also gardening and though he gloomily spoke of the weeding to come, he taught the girls many things about planting and showed them how to care for the shrubbery that Doctor Hugh had sent out from the nearest nursery and had small time to care for himself.

"Mother does love roses so," said Rosemary once, "and Hugh is determined to surprise her with a lot of new bushes."

"Is that why you're named Rosemary?" asked Jack curiously, thinking it strange that he had never noticed before how pretty freckles were.

Rosemary's expressive face sobered.

"Partly," she answered, "but I had a sister, you know, whom I never saw. She was named Mary, for Mother. And she died when she was three years old. So when I was born, a year later, Mother named me 'Rosemary,' which means remembrance. Mother told me once that I was named in memory of the little dead sister, and for the flowers she loved and to please my father who thought 'Mary' the most beautiful name in the world. So I've always liked my name."

"It suits you, somehow," said Jack. "Want to hold this bush steady while I fill in round the roots?"

Whenever Jack was touched, he sought employment for his hands, for fear he might say something to show his feeling. He had all the boy's horror of "making a fool" of himself.

April, with its soft, sudden showers and its exquisite velvety greens ran into May with its first hot days and the sound of Peter Cooper's hammer loud in the land as he diligently worked putting up screens and awnings. Aunt Trudy began to "feel the heat" and Winnie and Sarah battled again over the ethics of killing defenseless flies.

Toward the end of the month, the Student's Council, conceived the plan of holding a picnic for the three schools, an all-day picnic some Saturday. The plan was proposed at a morning assembly and met with such vigorous and hearty response that the date was settled upon then and there. Winnie was besieged that night by three excited girls who asked her advice on what "would do" to take to the picnic.

"We want to take enough, because some of them will bring only a little," said Rosemary. "The boys always stuff an apple in their pockets and then wonder why they are hungry when noon comes."

"I'll pack you three lunches that will be lunches," promised Winnie, "and there'll be enough to give away, too."

"We're going in motor trucks," bubbled Shirley, "I want to ride up front."

"I want to ride on back," proclaimed Sarah who never, by any chance, seemed to agree with anyone else. "I want to ride with my feet hanging over. And I'm going to tie a string to Shirley's rag doll and drag it in the dust—like the pictures in the Early Martyrs book, you know."

Shirley began to hop up and down with anger and began to cry.

"I won't have my dolly dragged in the dust," she shrieked.

"Martyrs have to be dragged in the dust," the perverse Sarah insisted. "I want to see her bounce when she hits the stones."

"Oh, Sarah, do be still," begged Rosemary. Then, to the weeping Shirley, "Sarah is only teasing you, darling. She wouldn't hurt your dolly."

"Are the teachers going?" asked Aunt Trudy anxiously. "I hope some older people will be on hand to look after you."

"Oh, the teachers are going—worse luck!" Sarah assured her. "I'll bet they shriek every time I find a water snake."