"I'm very sorry to be late," said Ruth penitently, as she walked into Miss Burton's little sitting-room to find the three other girls there before her.

"We were just wondering whether that fiery steed had carried you off so far that you couldn't get back," laughed Miss Burton.

"He's a beauty, and I'd have given anything to have my father see you ride off on him," said Dorothy, who longed to ride, but hadn't yet been able to persuade her father that it was a necessary part of her education.

"You see we didn't wait for you," continued Miss Burton, "so take off your hat and coat, and you shall have a cup of chocolate and some bread and butter as soon as you are ready."

"Riding does give one such an appetite," murmured Ruth apologetically, forgetting that they didn't know that she had been feasting only about an hour before. "But what were you talking about, girls, as I came up-stairs? Your voices sounded so earnest that I felt quite curious."

"We were talking about Mildred Walker," answered Betty. "I don't believe you ever heard of her, Ruth, but she's a girl who always lived here until about three years ago. Her father had a good deal of money, and suddenly he made a great deal more and they went to New York to live. They lived pretty extravagantly, I guess, and now he has lost all his money and is very sick, and Mildred will have to do something to help support the family. She's only nineteen, and she's never done anything but have a good time all her life, so we were wondering how she would get along."

"When my father heard about it," said Dorothy, "he slapped his hand down on the table and said, 'There, that settles it; my girl shall learn to do something to support herself in case need comes.' He looked so fierce and decided that I should have been quite worried if I hadn't made up my mind some time ago what I wanted to do."

"Oh, Dolly, what is it?" cried Ruth, almost upsetting her cup in her earnestness.

"Why, physical culture, of course," answered Dorothy. "I haven't any talent for anything else, and I just love that."

"It's a very good choice, Dorothy, for, even if you're never obliged to teach, it helps one in many ways," said Miss Burton. "I've always been very thankful that my wise father felt just as yours does, for when the time came I was able to take hold and do my part. When father helped me plan my education there seemed no possible chance that I should be obliged to earn my own living, but it came suddenly, as as it so often does, and I'm glad to think that both father and mother lived to see me working happily and successfully."

Miss Burton was smiling as she finished, but there was a soft mistiness in her brown eyes which touched the hearts of her adoring audience.

"Dear little Miss Burton," said Ruth, giving her a swift hug, "we can't be sorry that you had to earn your living if we try, for if you hadn't we never should have known you."

"Who can tell?" said Charlotte with mock solemnity. "Perhaps she might have come into our lives in some other way. Perhaps even now some one is drawing near to us who may be destined to play an important part in our lives or hers." Charlotte's voice grew deeper as she spoke, and her eyes had a faraway look.

"Oh, Charlotte, you goose. You make me feel positively creepy," cried Betty.

"You don't see any one over my shoulder, I hope," said Dorothy with an involuntary backward glance.

"Now, Miss Burton," said Charlotte with a laugh, "I leave it to you if that isn't sufficient proof that I ought to be an actress."

"I'm afraid the modern manager would require still more proof than that, Charlotte," answered Miss Burton, much amused. "But you certainly did that well."

"Let's all tell what we think we could do if we had to," proposed
Betty. "What should you do, Ruth?"

"I suppose that after I've studied the violin a few years more I could give lessons," said Ruth thoughtfully. "But somehow I don't seem to look forward to it with any wild joy. Whenever I plan ahead, I always think of myself as in a home, making things look pretty, and having lots of dinner-parties. I believe I should like to be a model hostess," she added honestly.

"Oh, Ruth, just a society woman?" asked Charlotte with scorn in her voice.

"Ruth's idea means more than that, Charlotte, if you think of it in its broadest sense," interposed Miss Burton. "To be a perfect hostess implies capacity for managing one's household, a wide culture, forgetfulness of self and a ready appreciation of the needs of others, sincerity, charm, interest in one's fellow beings, and so many other good qualities that I can't stop to mention them. It's really a beautiful ideal, and Ruth is fortunate in living with a woman who is one of the few perfect hostesses I know."

"I don't think I quite realized before how much it meant," said Ruth. "But it must have been watching Aunt Mary that made me think of it, for I used to have quite different ideas. It just occurs to me," she added with an infections laugh, "that the last time I remember saying anything about it I told father that when I grew up I should keep a candy-shop."

"And eat all you wanted, of course," added Charlotte as they all laughed. "That was my first idea, too."

"And what's your present idea?" asked Betty.

"Oh, mine's so big and impossible, and so slow in coming, that I can't bear to talk about it," answered Charlotte, grown suddenly shy, and then she relapsed into silence, and no amount of urging would make her speak.

"No one asks me about mine," said Betty plaintively after a pause in the conversation, "and I'm just dying to tell."

"Oh, Betty, forgive us, and divulge the secret this very minute," laughed Miss Burton.

"Well," began Betty slyly, "I'm going to be different from the rest of you; I'm going to be married and keep house. And my husband's going to be an invalid, at least I think I shall have him an invalid, and I shall have to support the family. Oh, I forgot to say that before I'm married I'm going to learn all about cooking and—and domestic science. Then I shall do all my own housework, and make cake for the neighbors, and cater for lunch-parties, and raise chickens and squabs, and keep bees, and grow violets and mushrooms, and have an herb-garden. Oh, and in my leisure moments—"

Miss Burton and the girls were quite helpless with laughter by this time, and Betty interrupted herself to look at them with pretended astonishment.

"I was just about to say," she went on severely, "when you interrupted me by laughing so rudely, that in my leisure moments I should make clothing for the children and myself, and also furnish fancy articles for the Woman's Exchange."

"Oh, Betty, when you are funny you are the funniest thing I ever saw," gasped Charlotte, going off into a fresh burst of laughter.

"I'm much obliged to you, Betty, for that laugh," said Miss Burton, wiping her eyes, "and I hope I'll be there to see when you get that model establishment of yours in running order."

"I'll send you samples of the various things if you're not on hand," responded Betty with a twinkle. "But really, Miss Burton," she added with sudden seriousness, "I do want to take a course in cooking and domestic science."

"Judging by the specimens of your cooking I've eaten I should think it would be the thing for you to do," replied Miss Burton heartily. "The opportunities for teaching in that line are many, and even if you never have to earn money by it, to know how to cook is a very great accomplishment."

"I dare say," said Charlotte, "that we shall all do something absolutely different from what we are planning now. Probably Betty will marry a millionaire, and Dolly will take in sewing. Who can say that Ruth may not be an artist? And I—well, I think my strong point is cooking, and I shall undoubtedly be feeding starving families on baked apples for years to come."

"Oh, fudge," said Dolly, much disgusted with her part of the prophecy.
"You can't tell fortunes for me, Charlotte; I won't have it."

"I'm sure to be an artist," laughed Ruth. "I can draw a pig with my eyes shut just as well as I can with them open. I should love to splash on color, though."

"You might be a house-painter," said Betty meditatively. "When my millionaire builds his house I'll employ you to do the painting."

"And Charlotte can be cook," suggested Ruth. "But speaking of artists, girls, makes me think of what I've been wanting to ask you ever since I got here. Uncle Henry and I called on Marie this afternoon and found her sitting on the piazza in the sunshine. Just as we were leaving we found out quite by accident that she has been making perfectly lovely little sketches, and Uncle Henry thinks she's a genius. He told her she must study as soon as she got strong, and you should have seen the longing look in those great dark eyes of hers."

"I suppose she hasn't a cent that she feels she can use for lessons," said Miss Burton thoughtfully. She, as well as Ruth's special chums, had become very much interested in Marie, and Mrs. Perrier's little house had been the goal of many a breezy walk.

"I think Uncle Henry means to help her, of course," continued Ruth, "but I was wondering if there wasn't something we could do to earn money. Wouldn't it be great if the Cooking Club could do something to help?"

"I should say it would," responded Dorothy with the greatest enthusiasm. "Didn't we begin to try even at our first meeting to make our club helpful to others?"

"I hope we shan't miss the mark the way we did that time," groaned
Charlotte with a disgusted expression on her face.

"Oh, but didn't Joe look too absurd in that ladylike black skirt and bonnet?" said Ruth going off into a fit of laughter. "I don't care if the joke was mostly on me; it was the funniest thing I ever saw."

"We never could pay him off with anything half so clever," laughed
Betty. "But, girls, it's Marie who wants to be an artist, not Joe.
Who's got an idea?"

"Let's have a supper in the Town Hall and cook all we can ourselves and solicit the rest," proposed Dorothy.

"Too much outside work when we're in school," protested Charlotte.

"If we could have it four weeks from now it would come in the April vacation," persisted Dorothy.

"Why not have some sort of an entertainment," suggested Miss Burton, "and seat your audience at small tables? Then at the end of the entertainment you could serve light refreshments."

"And we could have tableaux and perhaps some music," cried Ruth in a burst of inspiration. "You'd help us out with it, wouldn't you, Miss Burton?"

"Of course I would. I've had to plan such things several times."

"Let's choose the prettiest girls we can find in the school for waitresses," said Betty, "and have them wear cunning aprons and big bows on their heads."

"Why not have the thing open an hour or so before the entertainment begins, and give them a chance to buy home-made candy and salted almonds and some of those specialties which the gifted members of our club delight in making?" suggested Charlotte. "We shall need all the money we can get, for just the price of the tickets won't amount to very much."

"That's a practical idea, Charlotte," said Miss Burton. "And if you'd like it perhaps I can make some money for you by reading palms. The boys could build a little tent for me, and I could give each applicant five minutes of my valuable time."

"Oh, Miss Burton, can you really read palms?" cried Betty much impressed.

"Well, Betty," said Miss Burton with her radiant smile, "I can, at least, make it interesting for persons who like to have their palms read. And fortunately I have a costume which I wore for this same purpose at a Charity Bazar in Chicago."

"That will be great," said Dorothy. "Oh, girls, I think this is going to be the grandest affair we've ever had in Glenloch. Can't you just see how everything is going to look?"

"We'll get the boys to help decorate the hall," suggested Betty.

"They'll be useful in lots of ways," added Charlotte. "Boys come in handy sometimes."

"We must have a business meeting right away with Kit and Alice," continued the practical Dorothy. "We shan't accomplish anything until we know just what each one is to do."

"There's just one thing," said Ruth hesitatingly. "Do you suppose we can make a success of it without telling people what we are going to do with the money? Of course I know," she went on hurriedly, "that our own families must be told, but it seems to me it will be much pleasanter for Marie if it isn't generally known."

"That's so," declared Dorothy. "It would be horrid for her to feel that she is being made an object of charity for the town. Let's tell just our mothers and fathers, and swear them to secrecy."

"If we give a good entertainment," added Charlotte, "no one will have any right to ask what we're going to do with the money."

"Good," cried Ruth, much relieved. "I felt almost sorry I'd proposed it when I began to think about poor Marie."

"Girls, girls, it's half-past six," cried Betty, as Miss Burton's clock struck the half-hour. "I actually haven't heard that clock strike before this afternoon."

"Mercy me! We have dinner at six," and Ruth turned to find her coat and hat.

At that moment there was a knock, and Miss Burton's landlady poked her head into the room to say there was a gentleman at the door who wanted to see Miss Ruth Shirley.

"It must be Mr. Hamilton," said Ruth, who felt guilty on account of the lateness of the hour. "I'll call down and tell him I'll be there in a minute."

"It's not Mr. Hamilton. It's no one I know," answered Mrs. Stearns.

Ruth looked puzzled. "Oh, do come down with me," she implored, catching Miss Burton's hand, and together they went along the hall and down to the turn in the stairs. Then, as Ruth caught sight of the tall, handsome man standing in the hall with the lamplight shining full upon his face, she forgot everything else in the world, and getting over the remaining stairs in some incomprehensible way, threw herself into his outstretched arms.

"Oh, Uncle Jerry, Uncle Jerry!" she cried with a little break in her voice as she buried her head on his shoulder. She was quite unconscious that, though his arms tightened around her, his eyes were fixed with eager longing on the smiling girl who had stopped half-way down the stairs. There was a long second of silence. Uncle Jerry's face went white and then red. Margaret Burton's smile faded, and an expression of perplexity took its place. Then she came down the stairs, and holding out her hand said:

"I see you haven't forgotten me, Mr. Harper. I am very glad to see you again."

Ruth looked up in amazement as Uncle Jerry took the white hand in both of his. "Why, Miss Burton," he began impetuously, "I—" and then something made him look up to the hall above where three heads were gazing over the railing with eager curiosity.

"I am more than glad to meet you here," he continued lamely. "I—I had no idea of meeting an old friend."

"Miss Burton, you never told me that you knew my Uncle Jerry, and I've talked about him lots of times," protested Ruth in an aggrieved voice.

"Well, of course, I supposed your Uncle Jerry was Jeremiah Shirley," laughed Miss Burton. "You never told me that Jerry stood for Jerome, nor that his last name wasn't the same as yours."

"Why, so I didn't. And I suppose all the girls think your name is Jeremiah, and they're probably sorry for you. I'll run up now and get my hat, and bring them down to be properly introduced."

It seemed only a minute, and a very short one at that, to Jerome Harper, before Ruth came down-stairs again with the girls behind her. He ventured a little protesting glance at Miss Burton as she stepped into the background, and allowed the chattering girls to absorb him. Being Ruth's Uncle Jerry it was plainly his duty to show himself in the best possible light to these, her friends, and he did it in so charming a manner that they all fell in love with him on the spot.

They left the house together, and only Dorothy noticed that Uncle Jerry lingered a little to say good-bye to Miss Burton. Dorothy usually did notice everything connected with Miss Burton, and just then she had been thinking how pretty she looked in her simple white wool gown, with her fair hair low on her neck and her brown eyes shining.

"What under the sun made you say that some one might be coming to play an important part in Miss Burton's life, Char?" she said in a low tone to Charlotte as they started off. "Did you really have a feeling?"

"A feeling? No, goosey; of course I didn't. Why do you ask?"

Dorothy pinched her arm to hush her, and nodded significantly at
Uncle Jerry, who was just ahead of them with Betty and Ruth.

Charlotte looked surprised and then scornful. "I hate to see any one getting up a romance out of nothing," she whispered almost crossly. "They're just old acquaintances, of course."

But Dorothy knew that Charlotte hadn't seen Uncle Jerry's face as he said good-bye.