SPRING was on the borders of summer, when one afternoon, as Clara sat
writing a note in the drawing-room, she heard a tap at the door of
the little sitting-room, and springing to open it, she beheld a
welcome sight.

'Louis! How glad I am! Where do you come from?'

'Last from the station,' said Louis.

'What makes you knock at that door, now the drawing-room is alive?'

'I could not venture on an unceremonious invasion of Mrs. James
Frost's territory.'

'You'll find no distinction of territory here,' laughed Clara. 'It
was a fiction that we were to live in separate rooms, like naughty
children. Does not the drawing-room look nice?'

'As much improved as the inhabitant. Where are the other natives?'

'Granny and Isabel are walking, and will end by picking up Jem coming
out of school. We used to wait for him so often, that at last he
said we should be laughed at, so there's a law against it which no
one dares to transgress but granny.'

'So I conclude that you are a happy family.'

'After all, it was worth spending two years at school to enjoy