“Oh, I forgot!” he exclaimed, clapping a hand over his mouth.

“They are not to know a thing about it until time to light the lanterns,” she said, severely.  “And I think it would be very rude indeed for them not to make a good-bye call at yo’ house this mawnin’, even if you all are comin’ up to-night.”

“Oh, I say, Lloyd, leave a little piece of me, please ma’am,” he begged, in a meek voice.  “At least enough to help wind up the house party, to-night.  Say you’ll forgive me!” he insisted, clasping his hands together and looking at her cross-eyed, with such a comical expression that she could not help laughing.

The last time!  It’s the last time!  They said it as they stopped once more for the mail at the little post-office; as they turned regretfully homeward; as they went down the long avenue in the shade of the friendly old locusts.  They said it again when they wandered four abreast, and arm in arm about the place, for a farewell glance at every nook and corner, where they had romped and played in the five weeks just gone.  Even when the words were not wailed out disconsolately by one of them and echoed by the others, the thought that each thing they were doing was for the last time, went with them like a mournful undercurrent.

“Did you ever have a day fly by as fast as this one?” asked Joyce that afternoon, looking up from the trunk that Mom Beck was helping her to pack.  “Here it is nearly six o’clock, and I haven’t been down to the mulberry-tree.  I wanted one more swing on the grape-vine swing before I dressed for dinner.  It’s like flying to go sailing through the air, across the ravine, on that grape-vine that covers the mulberry-tree.”

“There won’t be time now,” said the Little Colonel, casting an anxious look toward the front windows.  If the girls had not been so busily occupied, they might have noticed how she had been manoeuvring for some time to keep them away from the front windows.  She even took them down the back stairs when they were ready for dinner, with the excuse that she wanted them to see the hamper in which Joyce’s puppy was to travel.  Eugenia’s Bob was to be left at Locust until after she had made her trip abroad.

Joyce had a fresh blue satin ribbon packed away in her satchel to tie around her Bob’s neck just before reaching home.  “Oh, girls!” she exclaimed, “don’t you know that those children are going to be delighted when this fat little dumpling comes rolling out of the hamper?  They will all grab for him at once, and Mary will be so tickled she will squeal.  She always does when she is excited, and it is so funny.  I wish I could hear her do it this blessed minute.  Somehow I can hardly wait to see them all now, although I don’t want to leave Locust one bit.  I have had such a good time!”