Of course, it would be several months before the hated school--Bettie, by this time, was quite certain that she hated it--would swallow up her dearest four friends at one sudden, hideous gulp; but remote as the date was, the interested girls could talk of very little else. No matter what topic they might begin with, it always worked around at last to "when I go away next fall." "I can't have any clothes this spring," said Jean, when the girls, in a body, were escorting Henrietta home from her dressmaker's. "Mother's letting my old things down and piecing everything till I feel like a walking bedquilt. You see, I'm to have new things to go away with." "Same here," asserted Mabel. "Only _my_ mother's having a worse time than yours to make my things meet. My waist measure is twenty-nine inches and my skirt bands are only twenty-seven." "_Only_ twenty-seven," groaned shapely Henrietta. "If you see a second Aunty Jane," said Marjory, skipping ahead to imitate the elder Miss Vale's prim, peculiar walk, "running round Lakeville all summer, you'll know who it is. She's cutting down two of her thousand-year-old gowns to tide me over the season. One came out of the Ark and she purchased the other at a little shop on Mount Ararat." "Grandmother's making lists," laughed Henrietta, "of all the things mentioned in all the catalogues. When she gets done, probably she'll add them all up and divide the result by _me_; and that will give a respectable outfit for one girl." "Poor Bettie!" said sympathetic Jean, squeezing Bettie's slim hand. "You're out of it all, aren't you?" But this was too much for Bettie. She turned hastily and fled. The girls looked after her pityingly. "Poor Bettie!" murmured Jean. "It's awfully hard on her to hear all this talk about school. She's always had us, you know, and she thinks there won't be a scrap of Lakeville left when we're gone." In February Rosa Marie created a little excitement by coming down with measles. Maggie, the maid, had broken out with this unlovely affliction and no one had suspected what the trouble was until she had peeled in the actual presence of Rosa Marie. Of course Rosa Marie came down with measles too. But there was an unusual feature about this illness. Although it was Maggie and Rosa Marie who were supposed to be the sufferers it was really Mrs. Crane who did all the suffering. You see, this inexperienced lady read all the literature that she could find that touched on the subject of measles and its after-effects; and long after Rosa Marie had entirely recovered, conscientious Mrs. Crane remained awake nights waiting for the dreaded "after-effects" to develop.