"Oh! A picnic!" cried Ruth, flushing with pleasure. This visit had driven out of her mind --for the time, at least--her trouble of overnight. "I'm going to ask Aunt Alviry for you," went on Helen, and skipped away to find the little old woman who, despite the drawback of "her back and her bones" was a very neat and particular housekeeper. She was back in a few moments. "She says you can go, just as soon as you get the butter made. Now, hurry up, and let us get into the buttercup field, which is a whole lot nicer than the butter churn and--Oh! it smells much nicer, too. Why, Ruth, that cream actually smells sour!" "I expect it is sour," laughed her friend. "Didn't you know that sweet butter comes from sour cream? And that most nice things are the result of hard work? The sweet from the bitter, you know." "My! how philosophical we are this morning. Isn't that butter ever coming?" "Impatience! Didn't you ever have to wait for anything you wanted in your life?" "Why, I've got to wait till next fall before I go to Briarwood Hall. That's a rhyme, Ruthie; it's been singing itself over and over in my mind for days. I'm really going to boarding school in the autumn. It's decided. Tom is going to the military academy on the other side of Osago Lake. He'll be within ten miles of Briarwood." Ruth's face had lost its brightness as Helen said this. The word "school" had brought again to the girl's mind her own unfortunate position and Uncle Jabez's unkindness. "I hope you will have a delightful time at Briarwood," Ruth said, softly. "I expect I shall miss you dreadfully." "Oh, suppose the Ogre should send you to school there, too!" cried Helen, with clasped hands. "Wouldn't that be splendid!" "That would be beyond all imagination," said Ruth, shaking her head. "I--I don't know that I shall be able to attend the balance of the term here." "Why not?" demanded Helen. "Won't he let you?" "He has said I could." Ruth could say no more just then. She hid her face from her friend, but made believe that it was the butter that occupied her attention. The dasher began to slap, slap, slap suggestively in the churn and little particles of beaten cream began to gather on the handle of the dasher. "Oh!" cried Helen. "It's getting hard!" "The butter is coming. Now a little cold water to help it separate. And then you shall have a most delicious glass of buttermilk." "No, thank you!" cried Helen. "They say it's good for one to drink it. But I never do like anything that's good for me." "Give it to me, Ruth," interposed another voice, and Tom put a smiling face around the corner of the well. "I thought you were never coming, Miss Flyaway," he said, to his sister. "Butter before buttercups, young man," responded Helen, primly. "We must wait for Ruth to--er--wash the butter, is it?" "Yes," said her friend, seriously, opening the churn and beginning to ladle out the now yellow butter into a wooden bowl.