But the only thing to think about that evening was the arrival of the eight-fifteen train, which would bring Eleanor, the B's, Nita Reese, Katherine Kittredge, Roberta Lewis, and Madeline Ayres, together with two-thirds of the rest of the senior class back to Harding. It was such fun to saunter down to the station in the warm twilight, to wait, relieved of all responsibilities concerning cabs, expressmen, and belated trunks, while the crowded train pulled in, and then to dash frantically about from one dear friend to another, stopping to shake hands with a sophomore here, and there to greet a junior, but being gladdest, of course, to welcome back the members of "the finest class." Betty and Rachel had arranged not to serve on the reception committee for freshmen that evening, and it was not long before the reunited "Merry Hearts" escaped from the pandemonium at the station to reassemble on the Belden House piazza for what Katherine called a "high old talk." How the tongues wagged! Eleanor Watson had come straight from her father's luxurious camp in the Colorado mountains, where she and Jim had been having a house-party for some of their Denver friends. "You girls must all come out next summer," she declared enthusiastically. "Father sent a special invitation to you, Betty, and he and--and--mother"--Eleanor struggled with the new name for the judge's young wife--"are coming on to commencement, and then of course you'll all meet them. Mother is so jolly--she knows just what girls like, and she enters into all the fun, just like one of us. Of course she is absurdly young," laughed Eleanor, as if the stepmother's youth had never been her most intolerable failing in her daughter's eyes. Babbie had been abroad, on an automobile trip through France. She looked more elegant than ever in a chic little suit from Paris, with a toque to match, and heavy gloves that she had bought in London. "I've got a pair for each of you in my trunk," she announced, "and here's hoping I didn't mix up the sizes." "Sixes for me," cried Bob. "Five and a-half," shrieked Babe. "Six and a-half," announced Katherine, "and you ought to have brought me two pairs, because I wear mine out more than twice as fast as anybody else." "What kind of a summer have you had, K?" asked Babe, who never wrote letters, and therefore seldom received any. "Same old kind," answered Katherine cheerfully. "Mended twenty dozen stockings, got breakfast for seven hungry mouths every morning, played tennis with the boys and Polly, tutored all I could, sent out father's bills,--oh, being the oldest of eight is no snap, I can tell you, but," Katherine added with a chuckle, "it's lots of fun. Boys do like you so if you're rather decent to them."