dumplings for dinner so you'd better hurry," she finished, breathlessly.

"For that I will," laughed Mr. Merrill, "my! but you do look grown up, pussy!" he added as he looked her over carefully. "Shoes fit all right? Everything has to be just so for Class Day you know, young lady, for folks want to be comfortable as well as beautiful when they go to all day 'doings.'"

"She thinks everything is all right," explained Mrs. Merrill. "You look pleased about something. Is there anything new?"

"Maybe so," said Mr. Merrill so mysteriously that Mary Jane stopped in the hall to listen. "Think you could get off Saturday evening instead of Sunday morning as you had planned?"

Mrs. Merrill thought a second. "Yes, I guess we could," she decided, "it wouldn't make a lot of difference either way. But I thought you had our reservations?"

"Changed them," said Mr. Merrill. "How would you like me to go along as far as Niagara and spend Sunday with you there and then you folks go on east Sunday night?"

"Really, Daddah?" called Mary Jane happily, "then you could eat in the diner with us and sleep and everything!"

"Wouldn't Uncle Hal be flattered," teased Mr. Merrill, "if he knew that you talked more about the diner than you do about Class Day!"

"Oh, I like Class Day too," declared Mary Jane fingering her new sash, "but I'm glad we have to eat on the train to get there."

"For my part I'm glad to eat now," said Mr. Merrill as he sniffed the aroma of Alice's dumplings, "I know I could eat three, so you'd better hurry off with that finery, Mary Jane, if you want your share."

Just twenty-four hours later, the four Merrills boarded the train for Boston. Much to Mary Jane's interest, the conductor didn't call "all aboard!" and there wasn't a bit of excitement at the station. The great train dashed into the residence station where they had decided to board it, hesitated only long enough for the porter to assist the Merrills and their bags onto car 201 and off they went—through the factories and suburbs the girls had seen when they came to Chicago for the first time.

Mary Jane pressed close to the window and was eagerly watching the sight of busy city life she could see on the streets as they flashed by, when a white-coated man walked through the car calling "Second call for dinner! Second call for dinner!"

"Why we missed the first call!" exclaimed Mary Jane in distress.

"Cheer up, pussy," said her father, "that doesn't happen often."

"Well, we won't miss anything more," announced Mary Jane positively, "'cause I washed my hands the last thing and my gloves kept 'em clean."

It didn't take long to tuck gloves into coat pockets, put hats in a safe place and walk to the diner. And here Mary Jane had a dinner such as she loved, with hashed brown potatoes, and salad and ice cream—to say nothing of meat and bread and butter and a big glass of milk in a creamy white tumbler.

"Now tell us what Niagara Falls is going to look like," suggested Alice when they were back in their own car.

"Oh, I couldn't do that," said Mrs. Merrill, "you'll have to wait till morning. As soon as the porter makes up your berth, you can go to sleep and then, when you wake up, you can see it all for yourself—water—rivers of water! The most water you ever saw! That's what it is."

Mary Jane thought of that sentence the next morning when she wakened. She was alone in the lower berth—evidently mother was out and dressed—and she couldn't hear a thing but water. Water dashing against the window, water dripping in through the tiny screen at her feet, water sounding on the roof of the car till she couldn't hear another thing.

"Why, we've stopped right in the Falls," she cried to herself, as she whirled around to look out of the window, "and it's like she said, water, water—everything's water!"

A DAY OF WETNESS

"Alice! Alice! Wake up!"

Mary Jane reached her hand behind the curtain into Alice's berth just ahead and pounded briskly on the cushioned sides.

"Alice! Hurry and wake up 'cause we're stopped and we're right in the middle of Niagara Falls and it's a-falling down!"

Alice stirred drowsily and then, as she realized what her sister was saying, she sat up straight with a start of amazement.

"Why, Mary Jane Merrill, what are you saying?" she asked. "The train doesn't stop at the Falls—it doesn't even go close enough for us to see them from the train. I asked Daddah last evening before I went to sleep."

"Well," said Mary Jane, not in the least disturbed by her sister's doubt, "you just raise your window curtain and look out."

Alice did as she was told and for a minute she was inclined to believe Mary Jane must be right. Water, water, water was all she could see. Water in the air; water dashing against the window; water running off the roof of the car in great streams; grayness and wetness everywhere.

"Looking at the landscape, ladies?" asked Mr. Merrill as he poked his head through the curtains and saw Alice's amazement.

"Morning, Daddah!" whispered Mary Jane as she clambered over from her own berth, "it is the Falls, isn't it? I told Alice we were right in 'em."

"You've reason enough to think so," laughed Mr. Merrill, "but as a matter of fact, you're not quite right. The 'Falls' which you see is rain—common everyday rain."

"I'd never call that common everyday rain," said Alice as an extra hard beating of rain actually made her afraid the window pane wouldn't be enough to keep the water out of the car, "we never have rain like that at home."

"They don't have it like that often, anywhere," said Mrs. Merrill arriving from the dressing room, "and I hate to invite more gloom, but do you happen to recall that this party decided they wouldn't 'bother' with umbrellas?"

"What ever'll we do?" exclaimed Mary Jane with a gasp of horror.

"Swim, like as not," said Mr. Merrill comfortingly. "We might as well, because it's Sunday you know and no store open to buy umbrellas."

"Isn't it lovely!" sighed Mary Jane in a voice of perfect content.

"Lovely!" exclaimed Mrs. Merrill.

"How lovely?" asked Alice.

"And she thinks it's 'lovely'!" mimicked Mr. Merrill.

"Well, it is," insisted Mary Jane. "When things look perfectly awful and you're sure they're all wrong, then we always think of something to do different and we have a beautiful time—we always do."

As though to prove her right, at that very minute the porter came along the aisle to Mr. Merrill and said, "There's a taxi man outside at the steps, sir, and he says if you