"I'm ever so glad we came, thank you so much, Jane," Pauline said heartily. "I wonder what'll have happened by the time we all see our next tow go down," Josie said, as they started towards home. "We may see a good many more than one before the general exodus," her brother answered. "But we won't have time to come watch for them. Oh, Paul, just think, only a little while now--" Tom slipped into step with Hilary, a little behind the others. "I never supposed the old soul had it in her," he said, glancing to where Jane trudged heavily on ahead. "Still, I suppose she was young--once; though I've never thought of her being so before." "Yes," Hilary said. "I wonder,--maybe, she's been better off, after all, right, here at home. She wouldn't have got to be Sextoness Jane anywhere else, probably." Tom glanced at her quickly. "Is there a hidden meaning--subject to be carefully avoided?" Hilary laughed. "As you like." "So you and Paul are off on your travels, too?" "Yes, though I can hardly believe it yet." "And just as glad to go as any of us." "Oh, but we're coming back--after we've been taught all manner of necessary things." "Edna'll be the only one of you girls left behind; it's rough on her." "It certainly is; we'll all have to write her heaps of letters." "Much time there'll be for letter-writing, outside of the home ones," Tom said. "Speaking of time," Josie turned towards them, "we're going to be busier than any bee ever dreamed of being, before or since Dr. Watts." They certainly were busy days that followed. So many of the young folks were going off that fall that a good many of the meetings of "The S. W. F. Club" resolved themselves into sewing-bees, for the girl members only. "If we'd known how jolly they were, we'd have tried them before," Bell declared one morning, dropping down on the rug Pauline had spread under the trees at one end of the parsonage lawn. Patience, pulling bastings with a business-like air, nodded her curly head wisely. "Miranda says, folks mostly get 'round to enjoying their blessings 'bout the time they come to lose them." "Has the all-important question been settled yet, Paul?" Edna asked, looking up from her work. She might not be going away to school, but even so, that did not debar one from new fall clothes at home. "They're coming to Vergennes with me," Bell said. "Then we can all come home together Friday nights." "They're coming to Boston with me," Josie corrected, "then we'll be back together for Thanksgiving." Shirley, meekly taking her first sewing lessons under Pauline's instructions, and frankly declaring that she didn't at all like them, dropped the hem she was turning. "They're coming to New York with me; and in the between-times we'll have such fun that they'll never want to come home." Pauline laughed. "It looks as though Hilary and I would have a busy winter between you all. It is a comfort to know where we are going."