plenty of fun out of her schooldays, but that the boarding-school, or seminary, is well qualified to afford all the "prank possibilities" of real, grown-up school life.

In "Dorothy Dale's Great Secret," the third of the series, there is shown what it means for a girl to be allowed too much liberty; to grow ambitious before she has grown wise; to act imprudently, and then to have to suffer the consequences.

It was Tavia who ran away to go on the stage, it was Dorothy who found her and brought her back. And Dorothy kept her "secret," though what it cost her only she knew.

The book immediately preceding this volume, entitled "Dorothy Dale and her Chums," tells the story of Dorothy, Tavia, Urania, a gypsy girl, and Miette, a little French lass. Dorothy had plenty of trouble trying to civilize Urania, and quite as much trying to save Miette some strange hardships. Dorothy was instrumental in bringing Miette into her own family rights, and if she did not entirely succeed in "taming" Urania, she at least improved her marvelously.

In all four of the preceding books the friends, whose acquaintance some of you are forming for the first time, played their respective parts as best they might, and now, as we find them on this wintry afternoon, they are ready to take part in other scenes, no less interesting, I hope.

Dorothy, Ned and Nat, at the sound of Mrs. White's admonition as she entered the library, turned to look at her in some surprise, for they were taken unawares.

Ned and Nat were always going to "fight," but they never actually did get at it. In fact, they were both blessed with a reasonable amount of good nature, and this, coupled with correct training, was destined to make them men of patience and common sense.

Of course, this time they were only joking, so the "boxing" their mother had somewhat jestingly accused them of was all part of the game.

Dorothy smoothed the cushions of the divan as her aunt advanced into the room. Ned and Nat both attempted to poke the same log in the open grate with the same poker, and the blaze that most unexpectedly shot up at this interference with a well-regulated fire, attending strictly to its own affairs, caused both young men to leap quickly back out of reach of a shower of sparks.

"Whew!" exclaimed Nat, falling over an ottoman that Dorothy had been lately sitting on, and landing very ungracefully at his mother's feet. "Mother, I adore you!" he suddenly exclaimed as he found himself in a suppliant attitude. "Only," he went on ruefully, rubbing his shins, "I did not intend to adore you quite so hard."

"A three-bagger," joked Ned, for indeed his brother's position over the "bag" was not unlike that of a baseball player "hugging the base."

"But you were just saying, as I came in," spoke Mrs. White, "something about Tavia's coming. She has not sent any word—any regrets, or anything of that sort, has she?"

"Why, no," answered Dorothy, "We were just saying that she might be here before we know it——"

"Who said that?" demanded Nat, promptly scrambling to his feet.

"Before we know it," repeated Ned, with special emphasis on the "before."

"However do you bear with them, Doro dear?" asked Mrs. White. "They seem to grow more unmanageable every day."

Then Dorothy, making herself heard above the argument, said:

"Boys, if we are going to meet Tavia——"

"If we are going to meet her!" exclaimed Nat, interrupting his pretty cousin, and putting a great deal of emphasis on the first word. "There's no 'if' in this deal. We are going," and he sprang up and continued springing until he reached his own room, where he proceeded to "slick up some," as he expressed it, while Ned, and Dorothy, too, prepared for the run to the depot in the Fire Bird, as speedy an automobile as could be found in all the country around North Birchland.

"Take plenty of robes," cautioned Mrs. White as the machine puffed and throbbed up to the front door. "It's getting colder, I think, and may snow at any moment."

"No such luck," grumbled Nat. "I never saw such fine, cold weather, and not a flake of snow. What's that about a 'green Christmas, and a fat graveyard'? Isn't there some proverb to that effect?"

"Oh, I surely think it will snow before Christmas," said Dorothy. "And we have plenty of robes, auntie, if the storm should come up suddenly."

"Come down, you mean," teased Ned, who seemed to be in just the proper mood for that sort of thing.

Dorothy laughed in retort. She enjoyed her cousins' good nature, and was never offended at their way of making fun at her expense.

Presently all was in readiness, and the Fire Bird swung out on the cedar-lined road and into the broad highway that led to the railroad station.

"I would just like to bet," remarked the persistent Ned as the station came into view at the end of the long road, "I would just like to bet almost anything that she will not come."

"Take you up!" answered Nat quickly. "I know she'll come."

"Oh, you feel her presence near," joked Ned. "Well, if she comes on time this trip there may be some hope for the poor wretch who may expect her to make good when he has fixed it up with the parson, the organist and——"

"Silly!" cried Dorothy gaily. "A man never pays the organist at—at an affair of that kind," and she blushed prettily.

"No?" questioned Ned in surprise. "Glad to hear it. Here, Nat, take this wheel while I make a note of it. A little thing like that is worth remembering," and he pretended to take out a notebook and jot it down.

When the train glided into the station, with a shrill screeching protest from the sparking wheels and brakes, and when quite a number of persons had alighted and gone their several ways, Dorothy and Nat, who had peered hopefully and anxiously at each passenger, looked rather ruefully at each other. Tavia had not come.

"Well?" asked Nat.

"Let's wait a little longer," suggested Dorothy.

Finally the train started up again, the private carriages and hired hacks had been driven off with scores of passengers and their baggage. Then, and not until she had looked up and down the deserted platforms, did Dorothy admit to Nat:

"She hasn't come!"

"Looks like it," replied the lad, plainly very much disappointed.

Ned, who could see what had happened, clapped his gloved hands in unholy glee.

"Didn't I tell you she'd duck?" he demanded triumphantly. "Didn't I tell you so?"

"Aw shut up!" growled Nat in pardonable anger.

"Ha! ha!" laughed his brother.

"Well, you're enough to hoodoo the whole thing," retorted Nat.

But Ned simply had to laugh—he couldn't help it, and when Dorothy and Nat took their places again in the machine Ned was chuckling and gasping in a manner that threatened to do serious damage to his entire vocal apparatus.

"It would have been a pity to have disappointed you in your fun," remarked Nat sarcastically after a particularly gleeful yelp from Ned. "What you would have missed had she come!"

"But I can't understand it," said Dorothy. "There is no other train until eight o'clock to-night."

"And that's a local that stops at every white-washed fence," added Nat.

"Oh, well, then she'll have plenty of time to think of the fine dinner she has missed," went on his brother. "Of all mean traits, I count that of being late the very meanest a nice girl can have."

"Oh, so then she is nice?" inquired Dorothy with a smile.

"Well, she can be—sometimes. But she was not to-day—eh, Nat?"

"For the land sake, say your prayers, or do—do something!" exclaimed his irritated brother.

"I might," retorted Ned, "but, being good is such a lonesome job, as some poet has remarked. Now, having fun is——"

"Look out there!" cautioned Nat suddenly. "You nearly ran over Mrs. Brocade's pet pup."

A tiny