Great was the excitement in Apple-Blossom Alley on Saturday morning. Adele was up before the rising bell and as soon as she was dressed, she tapped on each of the neighboring doors calling, “Wake up! Maybe Gertrude is coming to-day.”

“I am so glad that it is Saturday,” Betty Burd declared. “Perhaps Madame Deriby will allow us all to go to the station to meet Trudie, and won’t we hug her though?”

“But we are not sure that she is coming,” Bertha Angel said.

“I’m sure!” Adele declared. “Oh, good, there’s the breakfast bell and now maybe we shall hear something about it.”

Just as the eight girls were tripping down the wide front stairs, a telephone rang in Madame Deriby’s office. Marie, a maid, appeared from the library to answer it, but a second later she came out and beckoned to Adele. “Please, Miss, will you answer the phone? It’s long-distance and I’m not good at hearing,” she said.

With a rapidly beating heart, the girl took up the receiver.

“Is this the Linden Hall boarding-school?” a faint voice inquired.

“Yes it is,” Adele replied.

“This is Mr. Willis and I wish to say that my daughter, Gertrude, is leaving on the early morning train and will reach Linden at two o’clock this afternoon.”

“O goodie! Mr. Willis, I’m so glad! This is Adele. Tell Trudie the bus will be at the station to meet her. Good-bye.”

Adele turned around with shining eyes and found Madame Deriby smiling down at her.

“So your friend can come,” she said kindly. “I am very glad. Would you girls like to ride down in the bus to meet the train?”

“Thank you! We would just love to!” Adele declared.

The other pupils were already gathered in the dining-room when this group entered and they wondered at the eight shining faces.

“Something must have happened to please those girls from Sunnyside,” one of the seniors remarked. And something surely had.

“Adele,” Peggy Pierce exclaimed, when they were once again in Apple-Blossom Alley, “where is Gertrude to sleep? All of the beds on this corridor are occupied.”

“Perhaps I would better go back to my old room,” Evelyn Dartmoor suggested.

“No, indeed,” Adele declared. “Betty, if Madame Deriby is willing, don’t you think that we could have another single bed in here for Gertrude?”

“Oh, Della, I’d love to have her with us,” the little one cried clapping her hands gleefully.

“Then I will go at once and ask for permission,” Adele said. Madame Deriby had planned giving Miss Berry’s pretty room to Gertrude for the time being, but when she realized how much it meant to the girls from Sunnyside to have their friend with them, she smilingly consented, and soon thereafter Patrick appeared with another single bed and it was found that there was plenty of room to place the three in a row.

Evelyn, who had slipped away, reappeared carrying a bowl of beautiful roses.

“Girls,” she said, “I want to put these flowers that Grandpa sent me on the little table by Gertrude’s bed.”

“Oh, Evelyn, how nice!” Adele exclaimed. “I am sure that Trudie will like her corner.”

During the morning hours, the girls went about their tasks with happy hearts and when one would pass another, she would joyfully exclaim, “Gertrude’s coming to-day!”

At last one-thirty arrived and also Patrick and the school bus, into which the eight girls from Apple-Blossom Alley climbed, then, down the elm-arched drive the two spirited white horses trotted at a brisk pace.

It was five minutes to two when the bus drew up at the station, but no one was in sight. Fifteen minutes passed, and the train did not appear.

“It must be late,” Adele said. “I’m going to hunt for the station-master and inquire.” She found him asleep in the warm waiting-room.

“Mr. Station-Master,” Adele said clearly, “will you kindly tell me why the two o’clock train is late?”

The grey-bearded man sat up with a start. “Wall, is that so?” he exclaimed. “Sure enough, it must be late, but that’s nothin’ unusual. It’s a short line and the train sort of comes and goes to suit itself. Nothin’ could happen to it unless it ran off the track. It couldn’t bump into anything, for it’s the only train between here and Buffalo.”

Just then the telephone rang and the old station-master limped to get the message. “Wall, now, you don’t say!” he exclaimed in surprise to the person at the other end of the line. “That there train has done queer things in its time, but this sure is the queerest.”

“It isn’t wrecked, is it?” Adele asked anxiously.

“Nope, not exactly, so to speak,” the old man replied, “but the switch didn’t work right about half a mile from here, and the train went off on a siding and there she’s stuck.”

“Oh, poor Gertrude, all alone off on a siding,” Adele exclaimed, then she added, “But, Patrick, if it’s only half a mile from here, can’t we go over and get her?”

“Climb roight in,” the Irishman called, “and hold toight, for I’m goin’ to do some fast drivin’.”

The spirited horses, being urged by Patrick’s shouts and the snapping of the long whip, went on a gallop, and before long they saw a short train, from which Gertrude laughingly emerged to greet them.

“You poor darling!” Adele said when they had all hugged her. “This is not a very ‘propitious beginning’ as Bob says.”

“I didn’t mind it at all,” Gertrude told them, and then, as the bus started on its schoolward way, she added with eyes shining, “Oh, girls, I am so glad, so very, very glad that I am with you at last. I just know that we are going to have the happiest times together.”

Gertrude little dreamed that she was soon to meet some one in the neighborhood of Linden who eventually would bring even greater joy into her life.