I meant, therefore, to have laid all dates aside; especially as I found myself a little cramped by them, in re-introducing among these "Other Girls" the girls whom we have before, and rather lately, known. Lest, possibly, in anything which they have here grown to, or experienced, or accomplished, the sharply exact reader should seem to detect the requirement of a longer interval than the almanacs could actually give, I meant to have asked that it should be remembered, that we story-tellers write chiefly in the Potential Mood, and that tenses do not very essentially signify. It will all have had opportunity to be true in eighteen-seventy-five, if it have not had in eighteen-seventy-three. Well enough, indeed, if the prophecies be justified as speedily as the prochronisms will. The Great Fire, you see, came in and dated it. I could not help that; neither could I leave the great fact out. Not any more could I possibly tell what sort of April days we should have, when I found myself fixed to the very coming April and Easter, for the closing chapters of my tale. If persistent snow-storms fling a falsehood in my face, it will be what I have not heretofore believed possible,--a _white_ one; and we can all think of balmy Aprils that have been, and that are yet to be. With these appeals for trifling allowance,--leaving the larger need to the obvious accounting for in a largeness of subject which no slight fiction can adequately handle,--I give you leave to turn the page. A. D. T. W. BOSTON, _March_, 1873. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. SPILLED OUT II. UP-STAIRS III. TWO TRIPS IN THE TRAIN IV. NINETY-NINE FAHRENHEIT V. SPILLED OUT AGAIN VI. A LONG CHAPTER OF A WHOLE YEAR VII. BEL AND BARTHOLOMEW VIII. TO HELP: SOMEWHERE IX. INHERITANCE X. FILLMER AND BYLLES XI. CHRISTOFERO XII. LETTERS AND LINKS XIII. RACHEL FROKE'S TROUBLE XIV. MAVIS PLACE CHAPEL XV. BONNY BOWLS XVI. RECOMPENSE XVII. ERRANDS OF HOPE XVIII. BRICKFIELD FARMS XIX. BLOSSOMING FERNS XX. "WANTED" XXI. VOICES AND VISIONS XXII. BOX FIFTY-TWO XXIII. EVENING AND MORNING: THE SECOND DAY XXIV. TEMPTATION XXV. BEL BREE'S CRUSADE: THE PREACHING XXVI. TROUBLE AT THE SCHERMANS' XXVII. BEL BREE'S CRUSADE: THE TAKING OF JERUSALEM XXVIII. "LIVING IN" XXIX. WINTERGREEN XXX. NEIGHBOR STREET AND GRAVES ALLEY XXXI. CHOSEN: AND CALLED XXXII. EASTER LILIES XXXIII. KITCHEN CRAMBO XXXIV. WHAT NOBODY COULD HELP XXXV. HILL-HOPE THE OTHER GIRLS CHAPTER I. SPILLED OUT. Sylvie Argenter was driving about in her mother's little basket-phaeton. There was a story about this little basket-phaeton, a story, and a bit of domestic diplomacy.