“Do you know, Peggy Raymond, that you haven’t made a remark for three-quarters of an hour, unless somebody asked you a question?–and, even then, your answers didn’t fit.”

It was mid-June, and as happens not unfrequently in the month acknowledging allegiance to both seasons, spring had plunged headlong into summer, with no preparatory gradations from breezy coolness to sultry days and oppressive nights. Friendly Terrace wore an air of relaxation. School was over till September, and now that the bugbear of final examinations was disposed of, no one seemed possessed of sufficient energy to attempt anything more strenuous than wielding a palm-leaf fan.

On Amy Lassell’s front porch a quartet of wilted girls lounged about in attitudes expressive of indolent ease. Tall Priscilla occupied the hammock, and Ruth was ensconced in a willow rocking-chair, with a hassock at her feet. Peggy had made herself comfortable on the top step, with sofa cushions tucked skilfully at the small of her back, and behind her head. Amy herself sat cross-legged like a Turk on the porch floor and fanned vigorously to supplement the efforts of the lazy breeze.

Peggy, pondering her friend’s accusation with languid interest, dimpled into a smile which acknowledged its correctness. “Yes, you’re right, Amy,” she admitted. “And, if you want to know the reason, it’s only that my thoughts were wandering. The fact is, girls, I’m just hankering for the country.”

“Then what’s the matter–”

The suggestion on the tip of Amy’s tongue never got any farther, for Peggy, seemingly certain that it would prove inadequate, shook her head with a vigor hardly to be expected from her general air of lassitude.

“No, Amy! I don’t mean going to the park, or taking a trolley ride out to one of the suburbs. What I want is the sure-enough country, without any sidewalks, you know, and with roads that wind, and old hens clucking around, and cow-bells tinkling off in the pastures, and oceans of room–”

“And sunsets where the sun goes down behind green trees, instead of peoples’ houses,” Ruth interrupted dreamily. “And birds singing like mad to wake you up in the morning.”

“Yes, and berries growing alongside the road, where you can help yourself,” broke in Amy with animation. “And apples and nuts lying around under the trees, and green corn that melts in your mouth, and–”

“Not all at the same time, though.” The correction came from Priscilla’s hammock. “You wouldn’t find many nuts dropping from the trees at this time of the year.”

Before Amy could reply, the conversation was interrupted by the appearance of the most universally popular visitor ever gracing Friendly Terrace by his presence. He came often, without any danger of wearing out his welcome. Every household watched for his arrival, and felt injured if he passed without stopping. On Amy’s porch four necks craned, the better to view his advance, and four pairs of eyes were expectant.

“If there’s anything for me,” observed Peggy hopefully, “mother’ll wave, I know.” But Mrs. Raymond, who sat sewing on her own porch, opened the solitary letter the postman handed her, and proceeded to acquaint herself with its contents in full view of the watchers on the other side of the street.

“This must be Mother’s Day,” Amy exclaimed disapprovingly, when, a moment later, she accepted from the letter-carrier’s hand a fat blue envelope directed to Mrs. Gibson Lassell. But, in spite of her rather resentful tone, she scrambled to her feet, and carried the letter through to the shaded back room where her mother lay on the couch, with a glass of ice-tea beside her, devoting herself to the business of keeping cool.

Some time passed before Amy’s return. Priscilla’s hammock barely stirred and the rhythmic creak of Ruth’s rocking-chair grew gradually less frequent. Peggy, cuddling down among the cushions, let her thoughts stray again to the joys of being without sidewalks, and all that was implied in such a lack. The porch with the silent trio would not have seemed out of place in that enchanted country where the sleeping princess and her subjects dreamed away a hundred years.

All at once there was a rush, a slam, a series of little rapturous squeals. The Amy who had carried the blue envelope indoors, had been mysteriously replaced by a young person so bubbling over with animation as to be unable, apparently, to express herself, except by ecstatic gurgles and a mad capering about the porch.

Had a crisp October breeze all at once dissipated the languors of the June day, the effect on the occupants of the porch could hardly have been more immediate. Priscilla came out of the hammock with a bound. Peggy’s cushions rolled to the bottom of the steps, as Peggy leaped to her feet. And so precipitately did Ruth arise, that her rocking-chair went over backward, and narrowly escaped breaking a front window.

“Amy Lassell!” Peggy seized her friend by the shoulders and gave her a vigorous shake. “Stop acting this crazy way, and tell us what’s happened.”

“Talk of fairy godmothers!” gasped Amy, coherent at last. “Talk of dreams coming true! Oh, girls!”

“What is it?” Three exasperated voices screamed the question, and even Amy began to realize that her explanation had lacked lucidity. She tried again.

“That letter, you know. It’s the strangest coincidence I ever heard of. But haven’t you noticed lots of times–”

“Oh, Amy,” Ruth implored, “do let that part wait, and get to the point.”

“Why, this is the point. That letter was from an old friend of mother’s, Mrs. Leighton. She has a home up in the country, Sweet Fern Cottage I think they call it, or is it Sweet Briar–”

“Sweet chocolate, perhaps,” suggested Priscilla with gentle sarcasm. “One will do as well as another. Go on.”

“It’s the real country, Peggy, for you have to take a four-mile stage ride to get to the railway station. And Mrs. Leighton wanted to know if some of us wouldn’t like to use the cottage, as she is going to Europe this summer. And, right away, mother said it would be so nice for us girls to have it.”

The clamor that broke out made further explanations impossible. It was Amy’s turn to be superior.

“Girls, if you all keep talking at once, how can I ever tell you the rest? The cottage is all furnished, Mrs. Leighton says, and we would only have to bring bedding and towels, and things of that sort. And she says you can buy milk and vegetables very reasonably of the farmers in the neighborhood, so it wouldn’t be expensive when we divided it up among us.”

“We could do the cooking ourselves,” interrupted Peggy.

“Of course. Mrs. Leighton takes up her own servants, but if we found somebody to do our washing, and scrub us up occasionally, we could manage the rest.”

For half an hour the excited planning went on, and then four enthusiastic girls separated to subject the enterprise to the more cautious consideration of fathers and mothers. And that was the end of listlessness on Friendly Terrace for that hot wave, at least. At almost any hour of day, one might see a girl running across the street, or bursting into another girl’s house without warning, in order to set forth some new and brilliant idea which had just popped into her head, or to ask advice on some perplexing point, or to answer the objections somebody had raised. Though only four families on the Terrace were personally interested in the solution of the problem, the whole neighborhood took it up. It was generally agreed that the girls had worked hard in school, and were tired, and a summer in what Peggy called “the sure-enough country” would be the best thing in the world for them all.

Elaine Marshall, whom Peggy waylaid as she came home from her work, not long after the plan had been broached, gave it her immediate approval, pluckily trying to hide her consternation at the thought of Friendly Terrace without Peggy. But, in spite of her brave fluency, something in her eyes betrayed her, as she knew when Peggy slipped an arm about her waist and hugged her remorsefully.

“Now, Peggy Raymond, don’t go to being sorry for me, and spoiling your fun. You mustn’t fancy you’re so indispensable,” she ended with a feeble laugh.

“If only you had two months’ vacation, instead of two weeks,” mourned Peggy.

“I’m lucky to get two weeks, when I’ve been in your uncle’s office such a little while. And, anyway, Peggy, I couldn’t leave home for long as things are, even if my vacation lasted all summer.”

And it really was Elaine Marshall, speaking in that cheery, matter-of-fact tone, scorning the luxury of self-pity, conquering the temptation to look on herself as an object of sympathy. Peggy regarded her with affectionate admiration, quite unaware how important a factor she herself had been in bringing about a transformation almost beyond belief.

After twenty-four hours of reflection Friendly Terrace was practically a unit on the question. The fathers saw no reason why the girls should not go, and the mothers found a variety of reasons why they should. The question of a chaperon had been a temporary stumbling-block, for none of the mothers especially concerned had felt that she could be spared from home. But before the difficulty had begun to seem serious, Amy had exclaimed: “I believe Aunt Abigail would jump at the chance.”

“Aunt Abigail!” Priscilla repeated, with a thoughtful frown. “I don’t remember ever hearing you speak of her.”

“She’s father’s aunt, you know, but I always call her Aunt Abigail.”

There was a pause. “Then she must be a good deal like a grandmother,” Ruth hinted delicately.

“Why, yes. Aunt Abigail is seventy-five or six, I don’t remember which.”

Priscilla and Ruth looked at Peggy, their manner implying that the crisis demanded the exercise of her undeniable tact. Peggy made a brave effort to be equal to the emergency.

“Don’t you think, Amy, dear,” she hazarded, “that it would be a little trying to the nerves of an old lady to chaperon a lot of noisy girls–”

Amy’s burst of laughter was such an unexpected interruption that Peggy’s considerate appeal halted midway and the other girls stared. And Amy screwing her eyes tightly shut, as was her habit when highly amused, finished her laugh at her leisure, before she deigned an explanation.

“You’d know how funny that sounded if you’d ever seen Aunt Abigail. She’s along in her seventies, so I suppose you would call her old, but in a good many ways she’s as young as we are–Oh, yes, younger, as young as Peggy’s Dorothy.”

There was something fascinating in the idea of a chaperon, characterized by such singular extremes. The girls listened breathlessly.

“Mother says it’s all because she’s lived in such an unusual way. You see, her husband was an artist, and they used to travel around everywhere. Sometimes they’d board at a hotel, and sometimes they’d have rooms, and do light housekeeping, and, then again, they’d camp, and live in a tent for months at a time. And Aunt Abigail hasn’t any idea of getting up to breakfast at any special hour, or being on hand to dinner.”

The expression of anxious interest was fading gradually from the faces of the three listeners, and cheerful anticipation was taking its place.

“She forgets everything she promises to do,” Amy continued. “It isn’t because she’s old, either. She’s been that way ever since mother can remember. She’s always losing things, and getting into the most awful scrapes. We should have to look after her, just as if she were a child. And then she’s the jolliest soul you ever knew, and she’s a regular Arabian Nights’ entertainment when it comes to telling stories.”

After the vision of a nervous old lady who would demand that the house be very quiet, and get into a nervous flutter if a meal were delayed fifteen minutes, Amy’s realistic sketch was immensely appealing. “Girls,” Peggy exclaimed, “I move we invite Aunt Abigail to chaperon our crowd!” And the motion was carried not only unanimously, but with an enthusiasm Aunt Abigail would certainly have found gratifying, though it might have surprised her, in view of her grand-niece’s candid statement.

Peggy had pleaded to be allowed to take Dorothy along. “I can’t bear to think of that darling child spending July and August in a fourth-floor flat, looking down on the tops of street-cars. And I don’t think she’d bother you girls a bit.”“Bother!” cried Amy generously. “We need something to fall back on for rainy days, and Dorothy’s a picnic in herself. Between her and Aunt Abigail we’ll be entertained whatever happens.”

Priscilla, too, had suggested an addition to the party. “You’ve heard me speak of Claire Fendall, girls. I saw a good deal of her at the conservatory, and she’s as sweet as she can be. Well, we’ve talked of her visiting me this vacation, and I don’t feel quite like announcing that I’m going off for the entire summer without asking her if she’d like to go too.”

The girls had fallen in with the suggestion with the thoughtless cordiality characteristic of their years. It was Amy who suggested later to Peggy that sometimes she thought there was such a thing as a girl’s being too sweet. “I met Claire Fendall once when I went with Priscilla to a recital,” Amy remarked. “And–Oh, well, I’m not one of the people who like honey for breakfast every morning of the year.” But the only reply this Delphic utterance called forth from Peggy was a reproachful pinch.

In a week’s time they were ready. A special delivery letter had carried to Mrs. Leighton the grateful acceptance of her offer, and the keys had come by express the following day, rattling about in a tin box, and with the tantalizing air of secrecy and suggestiveness which always attaches itself to a bunch of keys. Aunt Abigail had been invited to chaperon the party and had accepted by telegraph. Peggy’s father had made an excuse for a business trip to New York, and had brought his small granddaughter home with him, full of the liveliest anticipation regarding her summer. And Priscilla had received a twenty-page letter from Claire Fendall, declaring that it would be perfectly heavenly to spend two months anywhere in Priscilla’s society, and that nothing in the world could possibly prevent her from coming.

There had been no time during that week for lounging on porches, or swinging in hammocks. Afternoon naps were sternly eliminated from the daily program, and the day began early enough to satisfy the originator of the maxim which gives us to understand that early rising is synonymous with health, wealth and wisdom. Trunks were packed, amid prolonged discussion as to what to take and what to leave behind. The mothers, as is the way of mothers the world over, insisted on warm flannels, and wraps, rubbers and rain-coats, to provide for all extremes of weather. Peggy’s suggestion that the country was a fine place for wearing out old clothes, had been received with enthusiasm, and faded ginghams and lawns of a bygone style, far outnumbered the new frocks with which the Terrace girls had made ready for the season.

The June day appointed for the departure dawned with such radiant brightness that all along the Terrace it was accepted as a good omen. Early and hurried breakfasts were in order in a number of homes. Dorothy viewing her oatmeal with an air of disfavor, launched into the discussion of a subject which had occupied her thoughts for some time.

“Aunt Peggy, if I should see a bear up in the country, do you s’pose I’d be ’fraid? I’d jus’ say to him, ‘Scat, you old bear!’”

“Eat your oatmeal, Dorothy.” Peggy’s voice betrayed that her excitement was almost equal to Dorothy’s own. “There aren’t any bears where we’re going.”

“Ain’t there?” Dorothy’s tone indicated regretful surprise. “I guess God jus’ forgot to make ’em,” she sighed, and fell to watching her grandmother’s efforts to make the oatmeal more tempting, by adding another sprinkling of sugar to a dish already honey-sweet.

But even such a disappointment as this could not continue in the face of the thrilling nearness of departure. The trunks had gone to the station the night before, and now upon the porches of the various houses, suitcases, travelling bags, and nondescript rolls of shawls and steamer rugs began to make their appearance. Conversations were carried on across the street in a fashion that might have been annoying if everybody along the Terrace had not been astir to see the girls off. Elaine Marshall already dressed for the office, slipped through the opening in the hedge which separated her home from Peggy’s, and took possession of a shawl-strap and umbrella.

“Of course I’m going to the station with you,” she said, replying to Peggy’s look. “There’ll be room enough, won’t there, if Dorothy sits in my lap?”

“I guess you’d better hold Aunt Peggy ’stead of me,” Dorothy objected promptly, “’cause I’m going to have a birf-day pretty soon, and I’m getting to be a big girl.” And then she forgot her offended dignity, for the hacks were in sight.

It was well that these conveyances had arrived early, for the process of saying good-by was not a rapid one. There were so many kisses to be exchanged, so many last cautions to be given, so many promises to write often to be repeated,–reckless promises which if literally fulfilled would have required the services of an extra mail-carrier for Friendly Terrace–so many anxious inquiries as to the whereabouts of somebody’s suitcase or box of luncheon, to say nothing of Amy’s discovery at the last minute that she had left her railway ticket in the drawer of her writing desk, that for a time the outlook for ever getting started was gloomy indeed. But at last they were safely stowed away, and while the girls threw kisses in the direction of upper windows, where dishevelled heads were appearing, and little groups on doorsteps and porches waved handkerchiefs, and “Good-by” sounded on one side of the street and then on the other, like an echo gone distraught, the foremost driver cracked his whip and they were off.

“My gracious me,” a pleasantly garrulous old lady said to Mrs. Raymond half an hour later, “ain’t it going to be lonesome without that bunch of girls. It’s the first time I ever knew Friendly Terrace to seem deserted.”

“It will seem a little lonely, I imagine,” Mrs. Raymond answered cheerily, and then she went indoors and found a dark corner where she could wipe her eyes unseen. But when Dick came around to express his opinion as to the team that would win the pennant that season, she was able to give him as interested attention as if two long months were not to elapse before she saw Peggy again.