At four o'clock the children trooped out and flew down the road like wild birds escaped from a cage, leaving Marian uneasily twisting her handkerchief while she waited for Miss Smith to speak. Nothing was said until the sound of childish voices came from a distance. Then Miss Smith looked up and laughed. "Can you keep a secret for a few days, Marian?" she asked. "Come here, dear, and read the letter you brought me this morning." Marian read the short letter three times before she asked, "Are you going?" "Going," echoed Miss Smith; "that is the position I have long wished for, Marian. Only think how I shall enjoy teaching botany and English in a boarding-school. You see what they say, Marian, they want an immediate reply or it will be too late. If you hadn't told me about the letter you received the other day, I should have lost the position. I imagined what the letter was and sent for a copy. If you hadn't told me the truth, Marian, only think what a difference it would have made!" "I just have to tell the truth," said the little girl. "I believe you, dear, I never saw a more truthful child in my life." "Would you dare say I am the most honest child in school?" asked Marian, a sudden light making her face beautiful. "Will you write it down and sign your name?" "Well, you are the queerest mortal," exclaimed Miss Smith, but reaching for a piece of paper and a pen, she wrote this: "Marian Lee is the most truthful pupil in my school. "VIRGINIA SMITH, Teacher." "It's for Uncle George," Marian explained. "He told me to try to do something better than anybody else and I haven't done it. He's coming for me Saturday and please do ask him to send me to your boarding-school. He has often talked about sending me away to school, but I used to be afraid to go and made a dreadful fuss, and then I had diphtheria." Uncle George arrived on Friday in time to have a long talk with Miss Smith before she left on the evening train. Had Marian known the nature of their conversation, she might not have cried so bitterly when the hour of parting came. CHAPTER XX MORE CHANGES MARIAN had been home a month when Uncle George decided to send her to boarding-school. "It is a curious thing," he remarked to the child, "that other people find it so easy to get along with you, and here at home there is no peace in the house while you are in it."