"Your first year!" cried Marjory. "Surely you're fooling!"
"Not this time," assured Henrietta. "I've had governesses and tutors ever since I could think, but this is truly my first school year. And it's great fun. But if I stay in America, I'm to go to boarding school, Grandmother says. I've always wanted to, and Grannie thinks it will be good for me to be with other girls. You see, I've always lived with grown folks, so I need to renew my youth."
"Mother's been reading the boarding-school advertisements in the magazines lately," said Mabel. "I heard her read some of them aloud to Father. But of course they couldn't have been thinking about _me_. But they sounded interesting."
"Perhaps," offered Bettie, "they had read all the stories and those boarding schools were all they had left to read."
"Aunt Jane reads them, too," added Marjory. "There's some money that is to be used for my education and for nothing else. When I've finished with High School I'm to go to College."
"Oh well," laughed, Jean, lightly, "you're safe for another five years."
"_I_'m not," returned Henrietta. "I'm going next September, and if Grandmother had known how the schools were going to be you wouldn't be having the pleasure of my company now. She says I'm getting thin in the pursuit of knowledge--it's too scattered, in Lakeville. That's why she made me ride to-day."
"Look!" cried Mabel, her eyes bulging with astonishment. "She's really making lace!"
"It's for you," said Henrietta, flashing a bright glance at Mabel. "It's an apology, Mam'selle, for my past--and perhaps my future--misdeeds."
"I _said_ I didn't like you," blurted honest Mabel, "but I do."
"Don't depend on me," sighed Henrietta. "I don't wear well. You'll find the real me rubbing through in spots. Granny says I'm an imp that came in one of Dad's Hindoo boxes."
"Why does your grandmother call you Midge?" asked Bettie.
"Because she doesn't like Henrietta. You see, I have five names--they do that sort of thing on the other side--and I take turns with them. When I find out which one suits me best, I'll choose that one for keeps."
"Henrietta Constance Louise Frederika Francesca--you see, there isn't a really suitable name in the lot. But when you have five quarrelsome aunts, as Father had, you have to please all or none of them by giving your poor helpless baby all their horrid names. Call me Sallie--I've _always_ wanted to be Sallie."