actly take to me, Reuben," she confessed. "She acts as if I were lots younger. She's dear, you know, and I simply adore her, but she'd never think of-well, talking over anything with me. We're not like sisters, somehow. I guess we're too polite."

She laughed. Reuben was frowning in his perplexity.

"In a way, I am younger," Anna said hesitatingly. "You see I haven't any education, and here's Rusty almost ready for college. Of course I couldn't be company for her."

She laughed in rather a sorry way, and as she went on she spoke almost bitterly. Reuben had never heard even sharpness in her voice before.

"The truth is, I ought to find my companions among the grammar-school children. I'm not fit to associate with any one else. It's my own fault, I know."

"Oh, Anna, don't talk that way," the boy entreated in genuine distress. "It's no such thingyou know it isn't. You are company-first-rate company-for us all. You've learned a lot about other things even if you haven't been in school. You can talk to Mr. Langley just like a grown-up young lady."

Miss Penny called him and he went into the other room. Anna joined them a little later, and while

she told Miss Penny about her mother's bonnet, Reuben read the weekly paper. The subject of bonnets wakened reminiscences on Miss Penny's part that well-nigh occupied the rest of the evening. When she finished, Reuben, who hadn't heard a word, sat waiting with shining brown eyes.

"Anna, why don't you begin school next yearenter the academy with the next class?" he asked eagerly.

Anna's face lighted up. Then she flushed.

"Oh, Reuben, I'm too old," she said sadly. "My dear Anna, you're not too old, and you look a mere child," cried Miss Penny. "If you would take your hair down and wear it as Rusty does hers, you'd look as young as she does some people think you look younger now. What do you think, Reuben?"

"Just as young," Reuben opined. "And if you wore your hair like Rusty's you'd look as young as she did when she entered the academy, I should think. Why don't you try it now? Would it take long?"

"Only a jiffy," cried Anna as she jumped from her chair. And before the words were out of her mouth, she was half-way up-stairs.

When she came down, a demure little maiden, indeed, with her fluffy flaxen hair parted in the middle and braided in a tail, both Miss Penny and

Reuben exclaimed in wondering admiration, and Miss Penny asked if she wouldn't begin school on Monday.

Anna, who knew as well as either of them what a pretty picture she made, flushed painfully.

"The truth is, I'd have to go to the grammar school, if I should go. I couldn't get into the academy," she faltered. "I don't know enough. And, oh, Miss Penny, I just couldn't stand it to go to the grammar school! Those girls seem just like babies beside of me."

Miss Penny's eyes filled with tears. She reached for Anna's hand and stroked it in gentle sympathy. But she looked confidently toward her oracle. And he did not fail her.

"Of course you don't want to do that, Anna,” he said. "But you can study up the rest of the year, and then go into the academy next September. I can help you, you know. I have lots more time than I need evenings, and I've had practice with the boys at school and with Frank. Let's begin Monday night. Will you, Anna ?”

"Oh, Reuben, you don't want to spend your time with a stupid like me?" protested Anna almost tearfully.

"It would be fun for me. love to do it," he assured her. Monday?"

Honestly, Anna, I'd

"Won't you begin

"Sure," returned
returned Anna warmly.

Penny, isn't he a perfect trump?”

"Oh, Miss

"Sure," echoed Miss Penny with such absurd effect that they all laughed, she herself most lightheartedly.

CHAPTER XXIX

HE catastrophe which made Rusty's com

TH

panions look back to that day when they stood at the edge of the pond commenting on Mabel's royal road to knowledge fell just before the general review which closed the winter term at the academy. Instead of the usual written examinations, the senior class were to have two weeks of oral examinations covering all the previous work of the year. They were to be carefully marked in each recitation, the results to be rated equally with their monthly records toward the general average. And the highest general average for the two years was to determine the award of the Wadsworth scholarship.

For the fortnight before the review the members of the class talked of little else, and presently the subject became the chief topic of polite conversation in the two villages. Despite all that had been said previously, every one outside the academy was amazed to be told that the one person in the class who really needed to cram was Mabel Graham. It was explained that it was largely because she hadn't copied her notes but had taken the lectures