"Don't you _dare_!" cried Nancy in consternation. "It would spoil it all. I'll write to you every day every thing that happens. Goodness, if I'm as scared when I face your Aunt Sa-something as I am right now when I think about it, she'll know at a glance that I'm just an everyday Leavitt and not the child of her forefathers!" "Hark!" Claire lifted a silencing finger. "The seniors are singing." The lines they loved drifted to them. "Lift the chorus, speed it onward, Loud her praises tell!" "Let's join them." Suddenly Claire caught a hand of each. "_Girls_, think of it--what it _means_--it's the last time--_it's all over_!" Her pretty face was tragic. Big Anne, with a vision of Russia in her heart, set her lips resolutely. "Don't look _back_--look _ahead_!" she cried, grandly. But in Nancy's mind as, her arms linked with her chums', she hurried off to join the other Seniors in their last sing, the troubling question echoed: "To what?" CHAPTER II WEBB A clatter of departing hoofs, a swirl of dust--and Nancy was left alone on the hot railroad platform of North Hero. Her heart had seemed to fix itself in one painful lump in her throat. She was so very, very close to facing her adventure! "If you please, can you tell me in what way I can reach Freedom?" Her faltering voice halted the telegraph operator as he was about to turn the corner of the station. "Freedom? Well, now, old Webb had ought 'a been here for the train. Isn't often Webb misses seein' the engine come in! Just you go in and sit down, Miss, he'll come along," and scarcely had the encouraging words passed the man's lips than a rickety, three-seated, canopied-topped wagon, marked "Freedom Stage" turned the corner. "_Hey_, Webb, here's a lady passenger goin' along with you to Freedom! And did you think the express would wait fer you?" Webb and his dusty, rusty and rickety wagon was a welcome sight to poor Nancy. It had already seemed to her that her journey was endless and that Freedom must be in the farthest corner of the world. For the first few hours she had been absorbed by her grief at parting with Anne. But a night in a funny little hotel in Burlington had given her time to reflect upon her undertaking and it had assumed terrible proportions in her eyes. The courage and confidence she had felt with her chums, back in the room in the dormitory, deserted her now. "Goin' to Freedom you say, Miss?" the man Webb asked, a great curiosity in his eyes. "Wal, you jes' come along with me! Had an order for Tobiases and it set me late, but we'll git thar. Climb up here, Miss," and with a flourishing aside of his reins he made room for her on the dusty seat he occupied. Nancy handed him her big bag and climbed easily over the wheel into the seat he had indicated. Then with a loud "get-ap" and a flourish of his whip they rumbled off on the last leg of Nancy's journey.