“That’s all that’s left me,” croaked the lame girl, when she was in one of her most difficult moods.  “I’ll learn all there is to be learned.  I’ll stuff my head full.  Then, when other girls laugh at my crooked back and weak legs, I’ll shame ’em by knowing more out of books.”

“Oh, what a mean way to put it!” gasped Helen.

“I don’t care, Miss!  You never had your back ache you and your legs go wabbly—­No person with a bad back and such aches and pains as I have, was ever good-natured!”

“Think of Aunt Alvirah,” murmured Ruth, gently.

“Oh, well—­she isn’t just human!” gasped the lame girl.

“She is very human, I think,” Ruth returned.

“No.  She’s an angel.  And no angel was ever called ‘Curtis,’” declared the other, her eyes snapping.

“But I believe there must be an angel somewhere named ‘Mercy,’” Ruth responded, still softly.

However, it was understood that Mercy was aiming to be the crack scholar of her class.  There was a scholarship to be won, and Mercy hoped to get it and to go to college two years later.

Even Jennie Stone declared she was going in for “extras.”

“What, pray?” scoffed The Fox.  “All your spare time is taken up in eating now, Miss.”

“All right.  I’ll go in for the heavyweight championship at table,” declared the plump girl, good-naturedly.  “At least, the result will doubtless be visible.”

Ann began to wonder what she was studying for.  All these other girls seemed to have some particular object.  Was she going to school without any real reason for it?

Uncle Bill would be proud of her, of course.  She practised assiduously to perfect her piano playing.  That was something that would show out in Bullhide and on the ranch.  Uncle Bill would crow over her playing just as he did over her bareback riding.

But Ann was not entirely satisfied with these thoughts.  Nor was she contented with the fact that she had begun to make her mates respect her.  There was something lacking.

She had half a mind to refuse Belle Tingley’s invitation to Cliff Island.  In her heart Ann believed she was included in the party because Belle would have been ashamed to ignore her, and Ruth would not have gone had Ann not been asked.

To tell the truth Ann was hungry for the girls to like her for herself—­for some attribute of character which she honestly possessed.  She had never had to think of such things before.  In her western home it had never crossed her mind whether people liked her, or not.  Everybody about Silver Ranch had been uniformly kind to her.

Belle’s holiday party was to be made up of the eight girls in the two quartette rooms, with Madge Steele, the senior; Madge’s brother, Bobbins, Tom Cameron, little Busy Izzy Phelps, and Belle’s own brothers.

“Of course, we’ve got to have the boys,” declared Helen.  “No fun without them.”