"Certain sure," replied her father. "With all the changes in the office just now I wouldn’t think it wise to leave my work for men who are already loaded up. And then, too," he added when he noticed how disappointed the two girls looked, "remember we’ll need somebody here to see about the new house—don’t you forget that!" "Of course we travel easily," said Mrs. Merrill, "and Hal promises to look after us so well." "And makes good by sending that list," said Mr. Merrill. "I never saw the like of the way he has everything lined up for you—you couldn’t get lost if you wanted to!" Alice and Mary Jane Merrill, who with their father and mother had moved from the small town where they had always lived, to the big city of Chicago only a few months before, were having a most interesting time. Not only had they seen city sights, played in the parks and done good work in school; in addition they had made a number of fine friends and, partly through some of these friends, had discovered that they could have an even happier time if Mary Jane had some place to dig, and garden and play out of doors. Girls who live in flats can’t very well have gardens—at least at Mary Jane’s flat one couldn’t. So the Merrills had started exploring and had quite suddenly bought a small piece of land on the edge of one of the outlying suburbs and there they planned to build a little "shack" where they could go every summer and play at being farmers. Such drawing of plans and studying of seed catalogues there never was—the girls found it wonderful fun. Then, as though going to the country and making a garden was not enough to keep one little girl’s head busy, there had come a letter from Mrs. Merrill’s brother reminding her of a promise made long ago that she would come to his graduation from Harvard. At first it seemed as though such a trip wouldn’t be possible. There was the house in the country to see to—and though it was to be only an unfinished cottage there were a thousand and one details about its building and furnishing that needed attention—the girls were in school and they had planned no summer dresses suitable to the gaieties of commencement week at Cambridge. But a day or two of careful thinking and planning made Mrs. Merrill decide that they would go. Last year’s "best" dresses had been let down and were very pretty; new ginghams for traveling surely would not be hard to make or buy and she loved making the dainty organdy dresses each girl would need for Class Day. The trip wouldn’t take long and soon they would be back to attend to the new country home which would hardly have time to miss them. Alice reached for the list Mr. Merrill had referred to and read what Uncle Hal had written out for them.