Miss Brooks was going away. This was her last week of school and next September when the children gathered again in the familiar old building, there would be a new teacher in her stead. The children were disconsolate, for in the three years that she had instructed them in the mysterious ways of knowledge, they had come to love her very dearly and to consider her one of their possessions. So it was a great shock to learn of her intentions, and particularly was this true with Tabitha whose grief at the impending loss was too deep for words. She could only stare and stare at the beloved face as the days slipped by lessening the teacher's stay with them, until Miss Brooks was so haunted by those pathetically appealing black eyes that she could scarcely sleep and began to wonder why it was that she should feel so much like a criminal every time she looked at the child. At last a happy thought occurred to her. She interviewed Mr. Carson, Dr. Vane and other prominent men of the town, with the result that the last Monday of the term she faced the scholars with a happy smile on her lips and hope in her heart, as she announced, "Children, I have some good news to tell you--" "You're not going away after all!" breathed Tabitha ecstatically, but the next instant her face fell, for the teacher gently shook her head to signify that this guess was wrong. "No, it isn't that, for I really cannot come back here next fall, children, or I would. But as long as I am going away, I thought we would celebrate it by having a farewell picnic. In the city where I live if any of our friends go away to live somewhere else, we always give them a little party as a sort of good-by to them, and we have a jolly time which they can remember always. Instead of having a party here, I thought it would be nice if we could go down to the river for a picnic, so I asked some of the gentlemen here in town about it and they told me that we can get wagons enough to take us all down there a week from tomorrow. It is such a long, long way we couldn't walk. It is a pretty place, too, and many of you haven't been there before. We will take our lunch and stay all day, coming home before it gets dark. Some of the parents are willing to accompany us, and we will have a fine time. How many of you would like to go?" Up went every hand in the room and the faces of the children beamed in happy anticipation, for picnics were almost unknown here on the barren desert, and any novelty was gladly welcomed. So the scholars began happy plans for this unusual gala day, and all that long week little else was thought of. This was just what Miss Brooks had hoped for, because in their looking forward to this extraordinary pleasure in their humdrum lives, they ceased to harass their teacher with mournful laments and direful prophecies, and even Tabitha's face lost some of its reproachful look.