bright, and sometimes a dimmer, picture on the street, whereon were other
groups of maidens. For school was out.

"Betty Nelson, the idea is perfectly splendid!" exclaimed the tallest of
the quartette; a stately, fair girl with wonderful braids of hair on
which the sunshine seemed to like to linger.

"And it will be such a relief from the ordinary way of doing things,"
added the companion of the one who thus paid a compliment to her chum
just in advance of her. "I detest monotony!"

"If only too many things don't happen to us!" This somewhat timid
observation came from the quietest of the four--she who was walking with
the one addressed as Betty.

"Why, Amy Stonington!" cried the girl who had first spoken, as she tossed
her head to get a rebellious lock of hair out of her dark eyes. "The very
idea! We _want_ things to happen; don't we, Betty?" and she caught the
arm of one who seemed to be the leader, and whirled her about to look
into her face. "Answer me!" she commanded. "Don't we?"

Betty smiled slightly, revealing her white, even teeth. Then she said
laughingly, and the laugh seemed to illuminate her countenance:

"I guess Grace meant certain kinds of happenings; didn't you, Grace?"

"Of course," and the rather willowy creature, whose style of dress
artistically accentuated her figure, caught a pencil that was slipping
from a book, and thrust it into the mass of light hair that was like a
crown to her beauty.