“Miss Beth, dearest, it’s awful; that’s what it is. It’s awful for me, and Liebchen will be wild when she hears it. You’ve just crept right into everybody’s heart here, Miss Beth, and there won’t be a dry eye, from Tim in the stable to the smallest maid below stairs, when you start. But you’ll be back in the fall. They’ll never let you stay away. So try not to feel too bad. If you please, let me tell you that it’s fine and just like you to go because you think some one needs you.” Frieda smiled affectionately at Beth, with tears in her own eyes. Beth arose slowly, feeling better. “That isn’t one bit finer than it is not to take some one’s silver spoons, Frieda,” she said. “It would be taking what didn’t belong to me if I took Cortmeer this summer and left Aunt Rebecca to pine--at her age, after bringing me up!” Anna Mary, in the doorway, exchanged smiles with Frieda at this speech. “So it would, Miss Beth; it’s right you are, but it’s something to be right!” she said. “I just stopped in one minyute, hearin’ the news and bein’ downright sorry to hear it. But I’m thinkin’ it may be better for you than you think, spendin’ this summer back where I fetched you from; a mixture won’t hurt you, little dear though you are! Your cousins are cryin’ in their room. Sure, you must all cheer up; summer does be swift passin’. Mrs. Cortlandt bade me say to you she would like you to be ready to go shoppin’ in half an hour. She is goin’ to get your summer wardrobe, Miss Beth, and there’s no better thing to dry female tears, be they from young or old eyes, than a pretty frock or two. It beats all the wisdom of the ancients and the consolation of friends.” Beth laughed. Her sense of humor could not be dampened down long by crying. “I don’t need a summer wardrobe at home, Anna Mary,” she said. “Some chambrays and a dimity for afternoons, and a real simple, fine white frock for best--that’s all you need there.” “Well, Miss Beth,” said Anna Mary, “Mrs. Cortlandt is that sorry about losin’ you, and the disappointment and all, that I’m thinkin’ she’ll have to buy a good deal more than that for you to console herself.” In the car, on the way to the shops, which were even more bewildering in their spring glories than when Beth had first seen them, Beth repeated to Aunt Alida her statement of the simplicity of her requirements in clothing for a summer in her old home. Aunt Alida smiled at her. “I won’t be extravagant, Bethie; I’ll promise it! You must let me get you a third of what you would have had at Cortmeer and that third is longer than your list,” she said. “What about your little friend, Janie? Is she the sort of child--rather are her people the sort of people who would be displeased if you brought her a few pretty summer concoctions to wear, so that you and she would be dressed in the same way this summer?”