weeks before he is allowed to see any of the Wellington people. The doctor is particularly anxious for him not to be reminded of his work. Excitement would be very dangerous for him."

"Is that what the doctor says or is it your verdict, Alice?" put in Judith, who had small liking for the Professor's cousin on the other side of the family.

"I'm in entire authority here," answered Miss Fern in such a hostile tone that Molly felt as if they had been accused of forcing their way into the sick room. "I am nursing during the day in conjunction with the infirmary nurse."

"Why don't you wear a cap, Alice?" asked Judith tauntingly. "It would make you look more like the real thing."

With a hurried excuse, Molly hastened out of the hall. It went against her grain to be involved in the quarrels of Alice Fern and Judith Blount. She was walking rapidly toward the village when she heard Judith's voice behind her calling.

"Wait, and I'll walk with you. I see you're going my way. I had to stay and give a last dig to that catty Alice Fern," she added breathlessly, catching up with Molly.

Molly smiled. She didn't know but that she agreed with Judith, but it was not her way to call people "cats."

"I'm so glad you arranged to take the post-grad., Judith," she began as they started down the avenue.

"Isn't it great?" answered Judith exultantly. "It's all Madeleine's doing, you know. We've had a wonderful summer, Molly. Almost the first summer I can remember when I wasn't bored."

"What have you two been up to?" Molly asked with some curiosity. The cloak of enthusiasm was a new one for Judith to wear and it was very becoming to her, Molly thought.

"We've been making money," Judith announced with sparkling eyes. "I've made almost enough to carry me through another year here."

"Goodness," Molly thought, "how the world does change. Think of the proud Judith working and then telling me about it, me whom she used to detest!"

"It's been jolly fun, too, and I didn't mind the work a bit."

"I hope you made a great deal," remarked Molly, not liking to ask too many questions but burning to know how money had been made by a girl who had once stamped her foot and declared she would never work for a living.

"A friend of brother Richard's, an actor, lent him his bungalow on the coast for the summer, and Mama and Madeleine and I spent four months in it, with Richard down for the week-ends. It was a pretty bungalow with a big living-room and a broad piazza at the back looking right out to sea, and Madeleine conceived the notion of opening a tea-room there. Richard was willing and so was Mama and we started in right away. Madeleine had all sorts of schemes for advertising in the post office and at the general store, and at last we had a sign painted and hung out in front on a post. The coast road goes by the house and streams of automobiles are passing all day long, so that we began to have lots of customers immediately. I don't know how it happened, but it was a sort of fashionable meeting place for all the people in the neighborhood. Pretty soon we had to buy dozens of little blue teapots and crates of cup and saucers and plates. Even Mama helped with the sandwiches and Richard, too, when he could come down. But you should have seen Madeleine. Every afternoon she put on a cap and apron and turned waitress. She served everybody. She was the neatest, quickest, prettiest little waiting maid you ever saw. Mama and I worked in the kitchen filling orders. Sometimes the sandwiches would give out and then Mama and I and Bridget, our Irish maid who has stayed with us through everything, would slice bread like mad. Madeleine knew dozens of different ways of making sandwiches. We used to make up dishes of fillings ahead of time and keep them on ice. Sometimes at night we were so tired we'd simply fall into bed, but we succeeded beyond our wildest dreams and we had a splendid time in spite of the hard work."

"I think you are wonderful," cried Molly. "I should never even have hoped to make anything like that go."

"It's Madeleine who is the wonder," broke in Judith loyally. "She has the brains and energy of a real genius."

"Are you down at O'Reilly's this winter? I haven't seen either one of you to speak to before."

"Oh, yes, we have the same old rooms. I'm working up in two or three different subjects and taking a course in physical culture with a view to teaching it. You know, we are going to open a school, Madeleine and I?"

"Where?" demanded Molly, filled with interest in her old-time enemy's schemes.

"We don't know yet. It may be in the South. Madeleine has two more years here. I shall go to Paris next year for a course at the Sorbonne, so that I shall be up in French by the time we are ready to start."

Molly was almost too amazed over the change Madeleine had wrought in Judith to comment politely on the glowing future Judith mapped out for herself. She recalled how Judith had once insulted the little Southern girl at a Sophomore ball, and she remembered how Madeleine had said: "I shall make a friend of her, yet. You'll see."

"I wish I could make plans and stick to them," Molly thought. "How can I ever get anywhere when I don't even know where I want to get? If I am not to teach school, then what am I to do?"

Many times a day Molly asked herself this question. There were times during the summer when she heard the call still infinitely far away to write, and on hot afternoons when the others were napping she would steal down to the big cool parlor with a pencil and pad. Here in the quiet of the darkened room, with strained mind and thoughts on tiptoe for inspiration, she would try to write, but the stories were crude and childish. Sometimes she would read over Professor Green's letter of advice about writing. "Be as simple and natural as if you were writing a letter," he had said, and her efforts to be natural and simple were invariably elaborately studied and self-conscious.

"I don't see why I want to do what I can't do," she would cry with despair in her heart, and then the next day perhaps she would try it again.

So it was that Molly had a feeling of unrest that was quite new to her. It was like entertaining a stranger within the gates to admit this unfamiliar spirit into her mind. And now, as she parted with Judith with a friendly handclasp, she felt the dissatisfaction more keenly than ever before.

Her errand in the village that afternoon was really to call on Mrs. Murphy, who, you will recall, was once housekeeper for Queen's. For many months the good soul had been laid up with rheumatism and for the sake of old times the Queen's girls plied her with attentions. The Murphys now lived in a small cottage near the depot and they were exceedingly poor, since the office of baggage-master brought in only a small pay. But Mrs. Murphy, crippled as she was, her fingers knotted at the joints like the limbs of old apple trees, managed to keep her rooms shining with neatness.

"And it's glad I am to see you, Miss," exclaimed the good woman, much aged since the days at Queen's.

She led Molly through a little hallway into the kitchen opening upon a small garden now bright with rows of cosmos, graceful and delicate in color, and brilliant masses of vari-colored, ragged chrysanthemums.

"It's the little Japanese lady that's tended my garden for me all summer, Miss. She may be a haythen, but she's as good as gold. Our Blessed Mother herself could not have been kinder."

Molly's heart was filled with admiration for Otoyo, who instead of