"Never left an umbrella yourself, of course?" "Ye-es--three," admitted Glory, "but I never _did_ anything--just let 'em go. This time it's my school-books, you see. It's different. I don't see how I'm going to school without any books." "Sure enough. Well, I'll see what I can do for you, my dear. I'll telegraph to the conductor to take 'em in charge and deliver 'em to you at your place, in the morning. How's that?" "Oh, thank you, Mr. Blodgett. You're a regular dear--I mean you're very kind." "Don't change it, my dear. The first is good enough for me," the old man laughed. He was thinking what a refreshing little picture his small window framed in. Was it like this his little girl would have looked if she had grown into girlhood? He gazed after the Flyaway One wistfully. It was still early in the morning, and Glory loitered about in the crisp September sunshine with an hour of time to "kill." There was but one early train to Centre Town, and that left Douglas at seven. It had not been so bad, of course, when the other girls came, too, but now!--Glory sighed pensively. So many things were bad now. The sun might just as well be snuffed out like a candle and it be raining torrents, for all the joy there was in living! "That was my fourth Latin lexicon," Glory exclaimed suddenly, with a vivid vision of Aunt Hope's grieved face. "I left two out in the rain, and lost a lot of leaves out of another, and now this one's gone on a tour! Poor auntie! I guess she might as well keep right on calling me Little Disappointment." It was an unpropitious beginning for the new term. Glory was obliged to refuse three times to recite, on the plea of her lost books, and double lessons loomed ahead of her dismally. But not for long--Glory never allowed "making up" to dispirit her unduly. Studying, anyway, was a nuisance, and the less time you let it give you the blues, the better. If you hadn't any books you couldn't study--naturally. Then why gloom over it a whole day? "Well, dear?" Aunt Hope said that night, as they sat in the twilight together; "well, the beginning and the ending are the first day. How has it been? You look happy enough--I can feel the corners of your mouth, and they turn up!" The slender, cool fingers traveled over the girl's face in their own privileged fashion. Glory remembered the books and drew down her lips hastily. "I've been naughty, auntie," she confessed softly. "Oh, Glory!--again?" "Yes'm, I'm afraid so. I'm afraid I've--lost something." Aunt Hope drew a long, patient breath before she spoke. Her fingers still lingered on the smooth cheeks and then wandered slowly to the tangle of soft hair. The little girl half hidden from her by the dusk was so dear to her! "Tell me about it, Little Disappointment," Aunt Hope said at length. And Glory told her story penitently.