That was why the chiming of the Library clock, that had marked the passage of happy time for more than one generation of youth, brought a shadow across each of the three young faces. A little wistfulness crept into Nancy's voice. "Your life's all cut out for you, Anne. It's positively thrilling! Though I'd make an awful mess out of any such undertaking. And Claire has her family. I'll just go to New York and get the key from Mother Finnegan and work like mad on the 'Child.' I want to finish it before Dad comes home. I shall send it, then, to Theodore Hoffman himself--I might as well hitch my wagon to the tiptoppest star--or whatever it is you do! Of course it isn't as grand as going to Russia, but I'm going to work, and some day, maybe, I'll be famous all over the world!" "Little Anne Leavitt, the great dramatist!" murmured Big Anne fondly. Claire Wallace, confronting nothing more serious than the squeezing of her belongings into the huge trunk, was stirred with envy. Nancy had her "Child"--not a youngster but a growing pile of manuscript, Anne had her "crusade" among the unfortunate children of Siberia--she had nothing ahead but to join her family at their summer home, an estate that covered hundreds of acres on Long Island. "I wish you'd come home with me, first, Nancy! You heard mother say how much she wanted you to come and we will have a beautiful time and then you can see Barry." Nancy frowned sternly. She had several reasons for frowning--she thought. Of course she would really like to go to Merrycliffe with Claire; she loved to frolic, and the last term had been a pretty hard grind, but her whole future depended upon her finishing her play and Claire simply must _not_ coax her! Then the other reason was Barry. Barry was Claire's brother recently returned from long service in France, decorated by each of the allied countries. Toward him Nancy and Anne, quite secretly, felt an unreasonable and growing dislike. Neither of them had ever laid eyes on him but, ignoring the injustice, based their antipathy solely on the fact that "Claire talks of nothing but Barry until you feel like shutting your ears!" Nancy had, more than once, declared that "she could just see him strutting around with all his medals, letting everyone make a lion of him, and she loathed handsome men, anyway--they lacked character" and Anne said "_her_ heart went out to those boys whose every minute in the trenches had been an unrecognized and unrecorded act of heroism." Of course they both carefully kept their real feelings from little Claire, who was too dear to them to ever hurt in any way, so that, when she talked "Barry," if they were only politely attentive, in her proud enthusiasm, she never noticed. Now Nancy, instead of saying truthfully that "_she_ wasn't going to spend her summer helping make a parlor pet out of the 'lion,'" simply shook her head and frowned.