“Berry Searles is so funny!” she continued.  “His mother is a horrid old thing, and always interfering with him.  Sometimes when he has a party of fellows in his room, and they’re playing cards, we can see her coming with her candle through the house; and when she gets to his door, she tries it, and then she knocks, and calls out, ’Abernathy, my son!’ And the fellows whip the cards into their pockets, and stick the bottles under the table, and get out their books and dictionaries like a flash; and when Berry unlocks the door, there they sit, studying away; and Mrs. Searles looks so disappointed!  I thought I should die one night, Mary Andrews and I laughed so.”

I verily believe that if Dr. Carr had been present at this conversation, he would have stopped at the next station, and taken the girls back to Burnet.  But he did not return from the smoking-car till the anecdotes about Berry were finished, and Lilly had begun again on Mrs. Florence.

“She’s a sort of queen, you know.  Everybody minds her.  She’s tall, and always dresses beautifully.  Her eyes are lovely; but, when she gets angry, they’re perfectly awful.  Rose Red says she’d rather face a mad bull any day than Mrs. Florence in a fury; and Rose ought to know, for she’s had more reprimands than any girl in school.”

“How many girls are there?” inquired Dr. Carr.

“There were forty-eight last term.  I don’t know how many there’ll be this, for they say Mrs. Florence is going to give up.  It’s she who makes the school so popular.”

All this time the train was moving northward.  With every mile the country grew prettier.  Spring had not fairly opened; but the grass was green, and the buds on the tress gave a tender mist-like color to the woods.  The road followed the river, which here and there turned upon itself in long links and windings.  Ranges of blue hills closed the distance.  Now and then a nearer mountain rose, single and alone, from the plain.  The air was cool, and full of brilliant zest, which the Western girls had never before tasted.  Katy felt as if she were drinking champagne.  She and Clover flew from window to window, exclaiming with such delight that Lilly was surprised.

“I can’t see what there is to make such a fuss about,” she remarked.  “That’s only Deerfield.  It’s quite a small place.”

“But how pretty it looks, nestled in among the hills!  Hills are lovely, Clover, aren’t they?”

“These hills are nothing.  You should see the White Mountains,” said the experienced Lilly.  “Ma and I spent three weeks at the Profile House last vacation.  It was perfectly elegant.”

In the course of the afternoon, Katy drew papa away to a distant seat, and confided her distress about the wash-stands.

“Don’t you think it is horrid, papa?  Aunt Izzie always said that it isn’t lady-like not to take a sponge-bath every morning; but how can we, with forty-eight girls in the room?  I don’t see what we are going to do.”