Miss Smith wrote and rewrote the letter, then waited for an answer with even less patience than Marian. At last it came, in Aunt Amelia's handwriting. Marian's heart sank when she saw the envelope. Her fears were well founded. Aunt Amelia was surprised to find that Marian knew no better than to trouble Miss Smith as she had. She might have known that Uncle George would not approve of her going to a city the size of Chicago to pass the holidays with strangers. Miss Smith, Dolly and Florence were indignant. Even Janey did some unselfish sputtering. "Anything's better than going home," Marian reasoned at last, "and what's the use of crying about what you can't help. I ought to be glad it isn't June." As a matter of fact, the holidays passed pleasantly for Marian in the big deserted house. The matron and the teachers who were left did everything in their power to please the child, and on Christmas Day the postman left her more gifts than she had ever received before. There were no potatoes in her stocking that year. During the holidays, Marian kept the photograph of her own mother beside the miniatures, and as the days went by she became convinced that her mother and Florence Weston's mother looked much alike. "My mother is prettier," she said aloud the last day of the old year, "but she is dead and as long as I live I never can see her. Perhaps I may see this other mother and perhaps she may love me. I shall have to put my picture away because it will get faded and spoiled, and I think I will pretend that Florence Weston's mother is my mother. Then I won't feel so lonesome. I never thought of pretending to have a mother before." When Florence returned after the holidays, she was unable to account for the change in Marian. The child was radiantly happy. Tears no longer filled her eyes when she gazed too intently upon the miniatures. Instead, she smiled back at the faces and sometimes waved her hand to them when she left the room. How could Florence dream that Marian had taken the little brothers, the sister and the mother for her own. CHAPTER XXIII HOW MARIAN CROSSED THE RAINBOW BRIDGE JUNE sent her messengers early. Every blade of grass that pushed its way through the brown earth, every bursting lilac bud or ambitious maple, spoke to Marian of June. Returning birds warbled the story and the world rejoiced. Teachers and pupils alike talked of June until it seemed to Marian that all nature and educational institutions had but one object, and that was to welcome June. She dreaded it. June meant Aunt Amelia and the end of all happiness. Yet Marian was only one. Ninety-nine other girls were looking eagerly forward to the close of school. They talked of it everywhere and at all hours.