“And here is mine,” followed Edna, placing on the table a real gold-and-white creamer.

“And mine—­with my love,” whispered Nita, putting down an egg-shell cup and saucer.

“Oh!” gasped Dorothy.  “How lovely!”

“And, Doro, dear,” added Lena Berg, “I brought my tankard.  It was the best piece, and nothing else would satisfy the committee.”

“I am sure——­” began Dorothy.

“Not too sure,” interrupted Dick, or Molly Richards.  “For here is mine—­it came all the way from Holland!”

“Girls!  How can I take all these beautiful things?  I am sure you must want them your own selves——­”

“Not half as much as we want you to have them,” declared Cologne.  “The fact is, we were just waiting for such a chance as this.  We are all gone—­soft to-night.  Take care we don’t kiss you, Doro.”

Tears were in Dorothy’s eyes.  She loved her school friends, and this was an affecting parting.

Tavia snatched up the banjo.  She sang: 

    “Good night!  Good night!  Good night!  Good night! 
      Good night again; God bless you. 
    And, oh, until we meet again,
    Good night!  Good night! 
      God bless you!”

The strain swelled into a splendid chorus, and, while they sang, the girls wrapped up the china pieces, putting each safely in the box beside the damaged ones.

“Speech!  Speech!” came the demand from Tavia’s corner, and without further ceremony Dorothy was lifted bodily up on the table and compelled to make a speech.  It was a dangerous, undertaking, for the sofa pillows that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere put in so much punctuation that the address might have been put down as a series of stops.  However, Dorothy did manage to say something, for which effort she was roundly applauded.

The night bell called them to the sense of school duties still unfinished.

“Oh, that old bell!” complained Nita, pouting.

Cologne drew Dorothy over in the corner.  “Ask Tavia about the man on the horse,” she whispered.  “She got a letter from him!”

CHAPTER IV

THE PREMATURE CAMP

After all, the last days of school came and went, and the Glenwood girls had started off for their respective homes before Dorothy had a chance to fully realize that the vacation had really begun, and that each day of that delightful calendar now seemed suspended from the very skies, illumined with the prospects of the very best of good times.

Dorothy had promised to spend a greater part of the summer with Rose-Mary Markin at the Markin summer place, a delightful spot on Lake Monadic in Maine.  This plan was particularly fortunate, as Mrs. Winthrop White, Dorothy’s Aunt Winnie, with whom the Dales had lately made their home, was to go abroad, while Ned and Nat, Dorothy’s cousins, had arranged such a varied itinerary for their summer sports, that one might imagine, to hear the schedule, that the particular summer involved must have been of the brand which has neither night nor autumn to mark its limits.