Jim had rather fallen behind, with all his fun and nonsense, and was studying day and night. He wasn't going to have Charley Reed get so far ahead of him! Examinations were coming on, and he didn't want any one to be ashamed of him, neither did he want to be conditioned. The little girl was studying very hard also, and reading a great deal. She had taken up the wonderful things of London that had been accumulating year by year. She had thought New York was getting quite ancient, but, oh, dear! England had been colonised by Julius Caesar, and was a country with a government even before that. There was no one to go out with, and she was too old to play. Last summer, they had gone around with Daisy in her wheeling-chair, and found so many amusing incidents, beside being out of doors in the vivifying air and sunshine. Josie Dean was almost a young lady, so tall that she wore her hair in a French twist, with a pretty silver comb, which was as much a girl's ambition as the big shell comb had been her mother's. And Tudie was just crazy over worsted work. She was doing a pair of covers for large ottomans, and then meant to go at the back and seat for a daintily carved reception-chair. There were some nice schoolmates who lived up above Mrs. Craven's; but they seldom came down to First Street. And as the little girl never complained, no one seemed to notice that she grew pale and thin, until one day Mrs. Underhill exclaimed:-- "Mercy me! What is the matter with that child! She looks like a ghost." "She never does have red cheeks except when she is excited," said her father. "But she has fallen away." "Too hard study and too much staying in the house," said Doctor Joe. "But I _must_ study one week more," declared the little girl. "I'm going to have a beautiful French exercise,"--they didn't always adapt their adjectives to the fine shades of meaning,--"and I'm at the head in history. I want to get in the senior grade. I feel well, only tired, and my head aches sometimes." Doctor Joe examined her pulse and nodded. "I'll give you the week," he said; but her heart went up to her throat. What if he had _not_ given her the week! They all came off with flying colours. Charles's Latin was the finest; but he had been studying it several years. Jim's essay won him much praise. And the little girl achieved her heart's desire. She was in the second grade of the seniors, and would graduate in two years. They had hardly decided what to do with her; but one day Mrs. Odell came down with Polly, who had cheeks like roses and was fat as a seal, her mother said. "You just let her come up and stay awhile with us, and drink buttermilk, and run out of doors and play in the hay. She's lived in the city long enough for a country girl, and she wants a change to freshen up her blood. She's fairly blue, she's so white." "That wouldn't be a bad idea," rejoined Mr. Underhill. "We could drive up every few days and see her." Mrs. Underhill looked up much interested.