ces of any of the four. According to the calendar, it contained only the usual seven days. According to the clock, each of these days consisted of the customary twenty-four hours. But the

y approving, were on the whole rather amused, and inclined to take the attitude that girls will be girls. Among their friends

obdurate. "Not to speak to me

te you let

fforts. "Of course," he went on in a milder tone, "I love your letters when I'm away from you.

And her sigh would have been much more vehemen

erself for her wandering thoughts. But things were no better when she listened her hardest. Priscilla knew that she was not a fool. She had finished her junior year in college, and her class standing in all philosophical subjects had been excellent. If she could not understand what Horace was talking about, she felt reasonably sure that the explanation was not in her own intellectual lack but because Horace was talking nonsense. The polysyllables he used so glibly and th

of the suggestion had terrified her unutterably. He had addressed himself to the stars and asked if it were true that there was neither faith nor constancy in womankind. Then he had looked at Priscilla, with an expression of agony, and said, "I thought it was you who was to heal my tortured heart, and now you have failed me." But when he began to put his hand to his forehead and mutter that life was only a series of disappointments and that the sooner it was over the better, Priscilla, whit

to the family gaiety. But by noon the humorous phase of the situation had passed, at least for the four chiefly concerned. All of them went about with an expression of Spartan-like resolve, blended with n

her vow of silence, and lose the hundred dollars which meant another year in school for little Myrtle Burns, he nevertheless subjected his sister to any number of nerve-racking tests. A crash as of a falling body in an upstairs room, a cry of anguish from the cellar, a loud k

as almost as much of a stumbling-block. "Now what do you think, Peggy," she would begin, "had we better try Turners again or-" And then catching sight of the Joan-of-Arc ex

work as farmerettes. They wrote-all four of them-to Lucy Haines, a country girl they had helped one summer vacation, now a successful teacher. If all weeks had been like this one, the postman who collected the mail from the Friendly Terrace letter-box would have needed an assistant. Peggy also wrote to Graham every day, and she

mbarrassing. Amy made a valiant effort to revive a finger alphabet they had used in school to carry on extended conversations across a school room. But though it had not taken long for the girls to refresh their memories of the letters, they found it much harder work to converse

ay had been passed in silence. "Tell Mr. Frost he might as well make out his check now," she wrote at the conclusion of the third day.

that a single inadvertent exclamation from the lips of one would render vain the effort and s

ne morning, as Ruth came downstairs heavy-eyed. "You girls call yourselves coll

her daughter looked at her appealingly, "that they mean to

ng to pay good money for anythin

of Amy's, didn'

ack was too complicated to explain without the assist

is a hundred dollars, especially these days. Y

, with a rather mischievous smile, for Mr. Wylie's admirat

at so,

nod

chair from the table, "is that in this matter my future d

atics they talk about an asymptote, something that something else is always approaching, but never reaches. That always se

hey spent the morning characteristically. Ruth, who had felt under the weather for a day or two, decided to stay in bed, this being a safe refuge. Priscilla took a basket of mending and retired to her room. Pe

lady. "P-- quite nervous." After the cake was finished and the frosting hardening, Amy resolved to take Aunt Phoebe's card over to Peggy. While they could not talk it over

repairs. Amy, swinging lightly along the familiar way, gained rapidly on an old man ahead who walked very deliberately, appar

broken slate and without even looking behind him, flung it to the street below. Amy saw the workman before

e air with the sharp edge down, dropped where he had stood an instant before. The old man took

rfeited the hundred dollars. Though she knew acknowledgment must be made to her partners in the undertaking, since as she had broken the spell the others were automatically released fro

What he meant to say does not matter, since the discovery that Amy

" Amy sobbe

deliberating. "I s'pose you

ow I could have helped it. I couldn't walk on deliberate

T ANY TOO MUCH TO PAY FO

eemed to be the head one in this thing. I was going to tell her that now I'd thought it over, my con

But either because her usually ready tongue was out of practise after six days of idleness, or because the realization

e as betting that you four girls couldn't keep from talking for a week.

for words that would do justice to the occasion, but Uncle Philander-

d coming through the air the way it was, it would have cleft my head open like it had been an

"Got pen and ink handy?" asked Mr. F

iting desk, and pointed out the articles he required. Mr. Philander Frost, seating

er how sensitive their consciences are, find any fault with that. A h

for Amy flung her arms around the old gentleman's neck and h

r in high school, and Uncle Philander-Behind-His-Back was