The long vacation was over, and on Monday morning the Sunny Seven met once more under the elm-tree in the school-yard.

“Oh, I’m so glad that school is going to begin again,” exclaimed the impulsive Betty Burd.

“Why, Betty?” Gertrude Willis laughingly inquired. “I didn’t know that you had such a thirst for knowledge.”

“Well, neither have I,” Betty confessed. “But somehow, during the vacation we all have so many things to do, we seven girls don’t see each other as often as we do in school-days. Why, just think! We haven’t been to our Secret Sanctum in ages, and we were so wild about it in the beginning.”

“I’ll tell you what!” exclaimed Adele. “Let’s go over there this afternoon and take our supper and have a good old-fashioned visit. This being the first day of school, we may not be kept in long.”

“Oh, let’s!” cried Doris Drexel, who, with her mother, had spent July and August at a seaside resort. “I’m just pining to see the meadows again. I’ve been away so long.”

“I suppose the cabin will be full of spiders,” said Rosie with a shudder.

“I’ll go ahead,” laughed Adele, “and ask them to please roll up their webs and move out into the meadows.”

Then, as the last bell was ringing, the girls trooped into the school. They were all eager to know who their new teacher would be, and all sad because they were losing Miss Donovan. They had heard that some changes had been made, and that the teacher who formerly had Seven B had been sent to another town.

“I just can’t wait to get to the room, to see who our teacher is to be,” Betty whispered, as the seven girls hurried up the stairs. The door of the seventh grade was standing open, and Betty was the first to enter. She gave a joyous cry as she danced in. The other girls, closely following, saw Betty throw her arms about the teacher, whose back was toward them.

“Why, it’s Miss Donovan!” Adele cried in delight. “Oh, are you to be our teacher again this year? That would be too good to be true.”

“Yes, I’ve been promoted with my girls,” laughed the young teacher, “and I’m glad that you’re glad.”

It touched her heart to find how much the seven girls really loved her, and she planned to make this new year as happy and as profitable for them as she could.

“Now, girls,” she said, “since I know that you can be trusted to keep the rules, you may choose seats wherever you wish.”

“May we all sit in this window-corner together?” Doris asked. And when the permission was given, they chose seats and stowed away their books.

“It will not be necessary for you girls to remain to-day,” Miss Donovan said. “I’ll give you your home-work and then you may go, but be back to-morrow morning at nine, ready for a term of hard study.”

“We will, indeed,” Adele assured her. “We are going to try to be perfect all through the year.”

“We, Adele?” Betty Burd inquired.

“Yes, we,” Adele replied. And Miss Donovan laughingly exclaimed, “That’s right, hitch your wagon to a star.”

That afternoon the girls met early at the cross-roads and wended their way over the meadows, which, in the bright September weather, were purple and yellow with golden-rod and wild aster. In the woods beyond were maple trees, flaunting in the sunlight their brightly colored leaves.

“I love the autumn days,” Adele said, as she danced along. “It doesn’t make me feel the least bit sad to see the leaves fall and the flowers fade, because I know that they are all coming back in the spring. The plants and trees have to sleep, as we do, I suppose.”

Soon they reached the long-neglected Secret Sanctum. Peggy Pierce found the key and the door swung open.

“Oh, isn’t it pretty and homey!” Doris Drexel exclaimed. “It’s so long since I’ve been here, I had almost forgotten how very nice it is.”

Bertha threw open the little high-up window and a merry breeze danced in.

Rosamond, still on the threshold, called, “Will somebody please look for spiders?”

Betty Burd seized the broom, and, dancing around the room, poked it up in the ceiling-corners, for the cabin had a low and almost flat roof.

Peggy Pierce, just for mischief, looked under the bed-couch and Doris Drexel peered in the china-closet.

“Nary a spider here, fair Rosamond,” she called. “You may safely enter.”

“I know that you girls think I’m a dreadful scare-cat,” Rosamond declared. “But I just can’t help being afraid of things.”

“You’ll get over it,” Adele said kindly, “when you find that nothing hurts you. Now every one be seated and we will have the secretary read the minutes of the last meeting.”

Hats were tossed on the rustic couch, lunch-boxes stacked in a corner, and the seven girls sat tailor-wise on the floor.

“I deeply regret to have to inform you, Madam President,” Gertrude began with solemn dignity, “that your secretary forgot to bring the book, but she remembers that at the last meeting it was unanimously resolved that the Sunnyside Club should, singly and all together, do at least one kind deed a week. Has this resolve been carried out?”

“Dear me, no, I’m afraid not,” Adele said. “Fixing up the play-house for the orphan babies was the last kind deed on the records, and the credit for that belongs to Betty Burd.”

“Not at all!” Betty protested. “That was the whole club’s kind deed.”

“And how the kiddies are enjoying their play-house!” Gertrude declared. “I went over there last Sunday to read to them, and twenty happier babies it would be hard to find.”

“Good!” Adele exclaimed. “Now the question before the house is, What kind deed shall the Sunnyside Club do next?”

“You tell us,” Gertrude Willis said. “Adele, I just know that you have a suggestion to make.”

“Well, then, I have,” Adele confessed. “Last week, when I was over visiting with dear old Granny Dorset, I was telling her about one of our parties, and she said, rather wistfully, ‘Parties are just for the young folks, aren’t they, Della? And yet, I do believe that I would enjoy a party more now than I ever did, but I guess I’ve been to my last.’ And then she sighed, which was so unlike cheerful Granny Dorset, that I decided right then and there to give a party for her, and I want you all to help. Will you?”

“Will we?” Bertha Angel exclaimed. “Indeed we will! I think it is so sad when the grandmothers are kept away by themselves and are not invited to share in the good times. My dear old grandma told me that at eighty her heart felt as young as it ever had, and that she enjoyed having a pretty new dress as much as she did when she was sixteen.”

“Oh, yes, and that’s another thing,” Adele said. “Granny Dorset told me that she would have a seventieth birthday one week from Saturday, and I asked, ‘Granny, if you could have just what you wish for a birthday present, what would it be?’ And, girls, you never could guess what she replied, not in a thousand years.”

“Well, then, we might as well give up first as last,” Peggy Pierce declared.

“Indeed you might,” Adele laughed. “I’m sure I never would have guessed it. Granny Dorset said that the dearest desire of her heart for the past ten years had been to possess a purple silk dress with lace in the neck and sleeves.”

“And she hasn’t been able to have it, of course,” Gertrude declared. “They belong to our church, and father calls there, and he said that the son-in-law is rather shiftless and the daughter has to scrimp in every way to provide for her own three children and Granny Dorset, but she is so proud that she won’t accept a bit of help.”

“Well,” Adele continued, “I thought that we would find out what other old people are still living in Sunnyside, who were young when Granny Dorset was, and then we’d invite them to a surprise birthday-party for her, and if we have money enough in the bank, we might buy her the purple silk dress.”

“Alas and alack!” Bertha exclaimed. “The bank is quite empty. Nothing has been put into it since we bought the presents for the orphans.”

“I’ll tell you what!” Peggy Pierce exclaimed. “Let’s start an account at the Bee Hive. Dad will be glad to do it for us, and we can buy the purple silk at cost. Miss Meadly, who does our sewing, will make the dress for us and wait for her pay until we have the money.”

“And as for the lace,” Rosamond Wright exclaimed, “my mother has ever and ever so much of it, and I know she will gladly donate enough for the neck and sleeves.”

“I hate to go in debt,” Adele said thoughtfully, “but we surely will find a way to earn money soon, and I do so want Granny Dorset to have the purple silk dress on her birthday.”

“We might do it just this once,” said the practical Bertha, “and then as soon as the party is over we must scurry around and find some way to earn money. We simply must not stay in debt.”

“We might give a play or something,” Betty Burd suggested.

“Now,” said President Adele, “who would like to be on a committee to find out from Granny Dorset which of the old people who are to-day living in Sunnyside were young when she was?”

“I suggest that Adele Doring and Gertrude Willis be appointed on that committee,” Rosamond drawled.

“Very well, we will accept, won’t we, Gertrude?” Adele asked brightly. And when Gertrude had agreed, the president added, “And I would like to nominate Peggy Pierce and Rosamond Wright as a committee of two to see that the purple silk dress is made, and that there is lace in the neck and sleeves.”

“But you will all have to help pick out the color and the pattern,” Peggy protested, and to this the others agreed.

“I am glad that we have two weeks to prepare,” Adele said, “because, now that school has begun, we will not want to neglect our studies, and it will take two weeks to have the dress made and—”

“But Adele,” Bertha exclaimed, “we haven’t decided where to hold the party.”

“We might have it here,” Adele said thoughtfully. “But don’t let’s decide that yet. And now let’s go for a tramp to the orphanage and invite Eva and Amanda to come over here and share our picnic supper.”

This was done, and the orphans were so happy and so grateful that the seven could not but feel that their Sunnyside Club was fulfilling its mission by bringing so much joy into the lonely lives of these two girls.