Then there was the fun of taking Gyp and Isobel everywhere. They were genuinely enraptured with all her favorite haunts; the magic of Kettle caught them just as it had caught Uncle Johnny that day he ran away from his guide. Every morning they were up with the birds and off over the trail to return laden with the treasures of Kettle, wild strawberries, lingering trillium, wild currant blossoms, moist baby ferns. Together these girls brought to quiet Sunnyside a gaiety it had not known before. To Mrs. Westley, after her lonely winter, it was as though a radiant summer sun had flooded suddenly through a gray mist. And Jerry had to tell her mother everything that had happened all through the winter. She saved it all for such moments as she and her mother stole to wander off together; it was easier to talk to mother alone, and then there were so many things she wanted only mother to know--concerning most of them she had written, to be sure, but she liked to think it all over again, herself--those first days of school, the classes, the teachers, the Ravens, basketball and hockey and that never-to-be-forgotten day at Haskin's Hill, the Everett party, the two "real plays," the great vaulted church where music floated from hidden pipes--only concerning the debate and that stormy evening when she had discarded her "charity" clothes did she keep silent. School, school, school; Mrs. Westley, listening intently, smiling wistfully at her big girl, in spirit lived with her through each experience, happy or trying, rejoicing that she had had them. And yet in her eyes there lingered a furtive questioning. Jerry, reveling in her own happiness, did not realize that her mother was watching her every expression with the anguishing fear that her Jerry might have changed. And she _had_ changed; she had grown, though she was still as straight as one of Kettle's young fir trees; her winter's experience had left its mark on her sunny face in a new firmness of the lips, a thoughtfulness behind the shining eyes. "Will these new friends, Jerry, these fine times you have had make you love Sunnyside less--or be discontented here?" Her mother had interrupted her flood of confidences to say. Jerry stared in such astonishment that her mother laughed, a shaky laugh, and kissed her. "Because, my dear, remember you are only Jerauld Travis of Kettle Mountain, and your life must lie just here. Oh, my precious, I thank God I have you back!" she added with an intensity of emotion that startled and puzzled Jerry.