almost severely plain, as Miss Erskine knew became a traveler. In fact, elegant simplicity marked her entire toilet, everything matched, everything was fresh and spotless, and arranged with an eye to remaining so. I am willing to concede that she was faultlessly dressed, and it was a real pleasure to see her thus. But I am also anxious to have the gentlemen understand that that same simple attire represented more money than two wardrobes like Flossy Shipley's. It is often so with those delightfully plain and simple dresses that attract so many people. In fact, it might as well be admitted, since we are on that subject, that elegant simplicity is sometimes a very expensive article.

Eurie Mitchell was neither particularly elegant nor noted for simplicity, yet her dress was not without character. We see enough of that sort to become familiar with what it means. Its language is simply a straightened purse, necessitating the putting together of shades that do not quite harmonize, and trimming in a way that will cover the most spots and take the least material. That was Eurie's dress. Skirt of one kind and overdress of another. A very economical fashion, and one not destined to last long, because of its economy, and the fact that very elegant ladies rather curl their lips at it, and call it the "patchwork style." Eurie from necessity rather than choice adopted it, and it was also her misfortune rather than her taste that the colors were too light to be really according to the mode. Her gloves were of an entirely different shade from the rest of the attire, and were mended with a shade of silk that did not quite match Altogether, Eurie's dress did not suit Miss Erskine. But, for that matter, neither did it suit herself, with this difference, that it was, after all, a matter of minor importance to her.

Miss Wilbur's dress can be disposed of in a single sentence: It was a black alpaca skirt, not too long, and severely plain, covered to within three inches with a plain brown linen polonaise; her black hat with a band of velvet about it, fastened by a single heavy knot, and her somewhat worn black gloves completed her toilet, and she looked every inch a lady. The very people who would have curled their aristocratic lips at Eurie's attempt at style, turned and gave Miss Wilbur a second thoughtful respectful look.

There was a Mr. Wayne who deserves attention. He possessed himself of
Miss Erskine's fan, and played with it carelessly, while he said:

"You are a queer set. What are you all going off there for, to bury yourselves in the woods? I don't believe one of you has an idea what you are about. And it is the very height of the season, too."

"That is the trouble," Miss Erskine said, with a little toss of her handsome head. "We are sick of the season, and want to get away from it. I want something new. That is precisely what I am going for."

"I have no doubt you will find it," and the gentleman gave a disdainful shrug to his shoulders. "Out in the backwoods attending a hallelujah meeting! I am sure I envy you."

"You don't know what we will find," Eurie Mitchell said, with a defiant air. "Nor what may happen to us before we return. We may meet our destinies. I have no doubt they are lurking for us behind some of the trees. Just you meet the evening train of Wednesday, two weeks hence, and see if you can not discover the finger of fate having been busy with us. Wonderful things can happen in two weeks."

Just then the train gave its last warning howl, and Mr. Wayne made rapid good-bys, a trifle more lingering in the case of Miss Erskine than the others, and with that prophetic sentence still ringing in his ears he departed. And the four girls were actually en route for Chautauqua.

CHAPTER III.

ENTERING THE CURRENT.

It is a queer thought, not to say a startling one, what very trifles about us are constantly giving object lessons on our characters. Those four girls, as they arranged themselves in the cars for their all-day journey conveyed four different impressions to the critical looker-on. In the first place they each selected and took possession of an entire seat, though the cars were filling rapidly, and many an anxious woman and heavily laden man looked reproachfully at them. They took these whole seats from entirely different stand-points—Miss Erskine because she was a finished and selfish traveler; and although she did not belong to that absolutely unendurable class, who occupy room that is not theirs until a conductor interferes, she yet regularly appropriated and kept the extra seat engaged with her flounces until she was asked outright to vacate it by one more determined than the rest. She hated company and avoided it when possible. Flossy Shipley was willing, nay, ready, to give up her extra seat the moment a person of the right sort appeared; not simply a cleanly, respectable individual—they might pass by the dozens—but one who attracted her, who was elegantly dressed and stylish looking. Flossy would endure being crowded if only the person who did it was stylish. Miss Wilbur was indifferent to the whole race of human beings; she cared as little as possible whether a well-dressed lady stood or sat; so far as she was concerned they were apt to do the former. She neither frowned nor smiled when the time came that she was obliged to move; she simply moved, with as unconcerned and indifferent a face as she had worn all the due. As for Eurie Mitchell, she took an entire seat, as she did most other things, from pure heedlessness; any one was welcome who wanted to sit with her, and whether it was a servant girl or a princess was a matter of no moment. These various shades of feeling were nearly as fully expressed in their faces as though they had spoken; and yet they did not in the least comprehend their own actions. This is only an illustration; it was so in a hundred little nothings during the day. Not a window was raised or closed for their benefit, not a turn of a blind made, that a close student of human nature could not have seen the distinct and ruling differences in their temperaments, no matter from what point of the compass they started. In the course of time they reached East Buffalo.

"Now for our dinners!" Eurie said, as the whistle shrieked a warning that the station was being neared. "What are we going to do?"

"We are going to eat them, I presume, as usual," Miss Erskine said in her most indifferent tone. I should explain that long before this the girls had grown weary of the separate seats, and by dint of much planning and the good-natured removal of two fellow passengers to other seats had accomplished an arrangement that should naturally have been enjoyed from the beginning: that of a turned seat, and being their own seat-mates.

"But I mean," Eurie said, in no wise quenched by what was a common enough manner in Miss Erskine, "are we to get a lunch, or are we to go in to a regular dinner?"

"If you mean what I am going to do, I shall most assuredly have a 'regular' dinner, as you call it. I have no fancy for eating things thrown together in a bag."

"The bag will be the most economical process for all that," Eurie said, laughing at Miss Erskine's disdainful face.

"I presume very likely; but as I did not start on this trip for the purpose of studying social economy, I shall vote for the dinner."

"And I shall take to the bag method," Eurie said, decidedly. Opposition always decided her. So it did Flossy, though in a different way; she was sure to side with the stronger party.

"It would be pleasanter for us all to keep together," she began in a doubtful tone, looking first at Miss Erskine and then at Eurie.

"But since, according to Eurie's and