"And be driven out of the B-Hive--not I!" Billy said decisively. "I
shan't have the least temptation to break it, anyway--I feel selfish all
over! You couldn't drive me to do a good deed with a--a pitchfork!"

"Me either--not even with a darning-needle!" laughed Laura Ann. "If
anybody asks me to lend her a pin, hear me say, 'Can't, my dear; it's
against the rules.' Needn't anybody worry about losing me out o' the
Hive!"

"Loraine will be the one--you see," T.O. said lazily. "And what I want
to know is, how are we going to live without Loraine? I vote we append a
by-law. By-law I.: 'Resolved, that we except Loraine--just Loraine.'"

"Second the motion," murmured Billy, on her back in the grass, nibbling
clover heads.

"No," Loraine said severely, "I refuse to be put into a by-law."

* * * * *

The summer days were long days--lazy, somnolent days. The four girls
spent them each in her own separate way. Sometimes the little colony met
only at mealtimes--with glowing reports of the mornings' or afternoons'
wanderings.

Billy, it was noticed, although like the rest she wandered abroad, made
no reports. Had she had a good time? Yes--yes, of course. Where had she
been all the morning or all the afternoon? Oh--oh, to places. Woods?
Yes--that is, almost woods. And more than that they failed to elicit.
Nearly every day she started away by herself, and after awhile they