"I expect Jean has grown very tall," said Bea one afternoon, as the girls were all gathered in Olive's room, and the big trunk stood open in the middle of the floor. "Probably wears long dresses, and does her hair in a chignogger," said Kat, from a perch on the foot-board of the bed, where she rested in idle moments. "'Tisn't to be supposed that she can be treated so like a young lady, and not get stuck up. Just to think of having a maid, and being called Miss Dering, when you are only twelve. Hollo, Kittie! hand me that pile of skirts, and I'll fold them." "Dear me," said Kittie, handing over the snowy starched heap. "You have six white skirts, Olive, and three of them trimmed. I'd feel terribly fixed up, and lady-like with so many." "Pooh! some girls have six dozen, with tucks, and ruffles and puffles on every blessed one of them," said Kat, making the starched cloth rattle with her vigorous folding. "All nonsense," assented Kittie, down on her knees before the trunk. "Now hand me the things and I'll pack. Kat, you're knocking everything off the table, the way you whisk those skirts around. Hand me the black dress; that's the heaviest and must go in first." "Where's the other black tip?" asked Bea, who was trimming the travelling hat. "There it is, you blew it behind the table with your whirlwind of skirts; hand it to me, Kat." "What fun it is to pack and go away," said Kat, fishing out the desired feather with Olive's parasol. "You pack like a captain, Kittie. I'd most likely have put her best hat in the first thing, shoe polish next, and then tumbled in anything that I happened to lay my hands on. Dear me, I wish I was going." "I really think it's too bad that you haven't a party dress, Olive," said Kittie, with some disapproval. "Whatever would she do with a party dress," cried Kat, once more enthroned on the foot-board. "Who'd give a party, I'd like to know? One old man, a little girl, and a pile of servants!" "Young Mr. Congreve is there," corrected Bea. "S'pose he is; and anyhow, I hope you'll snub him, Olive; he's going to own Congreve Hall, and it ought to have been papa's. If he was a decent man he wouldn't take it. How are you going to treat him?" "I don't know;--yes, I like the feather that way; you ought to see how nicely my dress hangs," said Olive, in a little flutter of pleasing excitement. "Really, it's quite nice getting ready to go away. I only wish the visit was over and done with, and all this preparation was for sending me off to study." "Don't worry about your studying, you're twice as smart now as any of us," said Bea, surveying her work, from its perch on her finger. "Now try this on, Olive, I've tipped the feather a little more to one side, and it looks more jaunty--just the thing too; isn't that becoming girls?" "Perfectly mag!" exclaimed Kat, making an eye-glass of her hands, and falling into a rapture of admiration that pretty near upset her from the foot-board.