Poor Virginia, who upon awaking had decided to try to forget all the discomfort of the evening before and be happy again, felt her resolution impossible of fulfillment in this atmosphere; and by the time breakfast was over (be assured it was a short repast) was as discouraged and homesick as the night before. She declined Mary’s and Anne’s invitation to walk with them and the sad-eyed Vivian to the village after Saturday morning’s house-cleaning; refused to play tennis with Priscilla and the Blackmore twins (two jolly girls from Hathaway); quite enraged Dorothy by discovering her and Imogene in secret conversation, when she went to find her sweater which Lucile had borrowed; and at last, completely discouraged, and sick of everything, wandered off down the hill by herself, pretending not to hear some girls from King Cottage, who called to her to wait. On the way she met the postman, who handed her three letters. She stuffed them in her pocket; and then, for fear of being followed by the King girls, hurried into the woods by a short cut she had already discovered, and found her way to the little gray stone chapel. She opened the door and went in, but it seemed cold and damp inside, and she came out again into the sunshine. Here she was practically sure of being undisturbed, for the girls did not often visit St. Helen’s Retreat on Saturday morning. She sat down on the stone steps and listened to the wind in the pine trees, which completely surrounded the little chapel. Shafts of sunlight fell through the branches upon the brown needles beneath. In among the tangled thickets beyond the trees, the birds were gathering to go southward. They seemed in a great bustle of preparation. Virginia spied thrushes and tow-hees, brown thrashers and robins in great numbers; also many bluebirds, whose color was not so brilliant as that of their mountain bluebird at home. The English sparrows, however, were undisturbed by thoughts of moving, and chattered about the eaves of the Retreat, quite lazy and content. At any other time Virginia would have watched the birds with eager interest, creeping through the thickets to observe them, for she was a real little student of their ways, and loved them dearly. But to-day the world was wrong, and birds were just birds, she told herself,—nothing more! Besides, she had been treated unjustly and unfairly, and she had a good cause for feeling blue. No one could blame her—not even Donald, whose words kept coming to her. She wished Don had never said them—they bothered her!