“Wal, I live on the other side er the place,” the woman continued, “an’ so I’m a leetle out er the way er hearin’ news, so I’d like reel well ter know; be ye goin’ ter have twelve gaowns, five cloaks, an’ a half er dozen hats as they say ye be?”

“No, that isn’t true,” said Randy, her flushed cheeks showing that she resented being thus questioned by a woman who was almost a stranger.  Turning, she hurried on toward home, and the curious one, giving the horse a smart clip drove off muttering,

“Gitting uppish ’fore she gits ter Boston.  Do’no what she’ll be when she’s stayed there a spell.”

At school, her mates were glad that Randy was to have so delightful a winter, and many and varied were the comments and speculations regarding it.

“It’ll be stupid here without you, Randy,” said Dot Marvin, “I don’t know but that we shall all go to sleep, while you’re a flyin’ round in the city.”

“I don’t expect to do much flying,” said Randy, laughing.  “I shall be working at school there instead of this school at home.  You must all write to me and tell me what you are doing, and I’ll be glad enough to answer you.”

“Indeed we will,” said Reuben Jenks.  “Let’s write Randy a long letter, each one of us writing a part of it and send it along to Boston, just to show her what we can do when we try.”

“Oh, what fun!” said Randy, “it will seem as if you were with me when I read a long letter in which all my friends are represented.”

“Lemme print something in it, Reuben, will you?  I want to be in the big letter, too,” cried little Prue.

“I guess I will let you,” Reuben answered heartily.  “What kind of a letter would it be if you didn’t have a hand in it, Prue?”

“I’d like to be going to Boston if it wasn’t for one thing,” said Molly Wilson, “and that’s those city girls.”

“Oh, ho, Molly.  I thought you were shy, and it ain’t city girls you hanker for?  Then it must be city boys,” said Reuben.

“’Tis not, Reuben Jenks,” said Molly, with unusual vim; “’tis not any such thing, it’s just that I’d be ’fraid those horrid city girls were watching everything I did and thinking me countryfied.”

“Well, I shall not let that idea make me uncomfortable,” said Randy, stoutly.  “I am a country girl, and if they say so, they will not be telling me anything new or surprising; beside, I think that there must be nice girls in the city as well as among us here.  I intend to like them, and I hope that they will like me.”

“They’ll be precious queer girls if they don’t,” said Jack Marvin.

“I wanted to go to boarding school,” said Phoebe Small, “but I didn’t mean a city school.  Seems to me I’d rather ’twouldn’t be city girls to get acquainted with.  Don’t you wish they were not city girls, Randy?”

“I believe that there are just as pleasant girls in Boston as there are here, and I look forward to meeting them,” said Randy.