The girl flushed, then said with an effort at indifference: "I thought perhaps it is hardly fair to decide that I do not like the mountain life, after having been here for such a few days. Shall you mind if I postpone my departure until a week from Tuesday?" The lad caught the hand that hung near him and pressed it with sudden warmth to his cheek. "Jane," he said, "I'm desperately lonesome for the comrade that my sister used to be. Won't you give up all thought of going away and try once again to be that other girl?" Jane looked puzzled, then she drew her hand away, saying coldly: "You are evidently not satisfied with me. I suppose that you also admire a girl who prefers to pare potatoes and stain her hands, than you do one who keeps herself attractive." Dan was astonished at the outburst, but wisely made no comment, though his thoughts were busy. Evidently Jean Sawyer had told his sister that he admired a girl who could be useful as well as ornamental. What would the result be, he wondered. But on the following day Jane permitted the other three to do all of the work of the cabin while she idled hours away at letter writing to her many girl friends in the East; finished her book, and started a bit of lace making which had been the popular pastime at the seminary. At nine o'clock on Monday the stage drew up in front of their stone stairway and the discordant sound from a horn seemed to be calling them, and so Gerald hopped down to receive from Mr. "Sourface" Wallace a packet of newspapers and letters. "Oh, thanks a lot, Mr. Wallace!" the boy shouted, knowing that the stage driver was deaf, and then up the stairway he scrambled to distribute the mail. There was a letter for each of the Abbotts from their father and a tiny note inclosed from grandmother with good advice for each, not excluding Jane, whose lips took their favorite scornful curve when it was read. But a glance at her other two letters sent her to her own room, where she could read them undisturbed. One was from Merry Starr and, instead of containing enthusiastic descriptions of the gay life at Newport, which it was her good fortune to be living, the epistle was crammed full of longing to see the wonderful West. "Tastes are surely different!" Jane thought as she opened the second epistle, which was from Esther Ballard. In it she read a news item which pleased her exceedingly. "Jane, old dear"--was the very informal beginning.