The first week of Judith’s visit in Packertown fairly flew by.  Miss Barbara was away much of the time, both morning and afternoon, with her music pupils, but Judith busied herself with the making of the dainty white dinner gown, and wove happy day-dreams while she worked.  In the evenings she and Miss Barbara pored over a map of Washington until they could locate all the prominent places of interest, and then Miss Barbara brought out a pile of borrowed magazines in which were interesting descriptions of those very places, and they took turns in reading aloud.

[Illustration:  “SHE AND MISS BARBARA PORED OVER A MAP OF WASHINGTON”]

When the dress was completed they had a little jubilee.  Judith wore it one evening, with its dainty flutter of ribbons, for Miss Barbara to admire, and they invited the landlady and her daughter in to have music and toast marshmallows.

“You don’t look a day over eighteen,” Miss Barbara declared.  “You ought to wear white all the time.”

“It is given only to saints and the ‘lilies that toil not’ to do that,” answered Judith, gaily.  “I am satisfied to be arrayed just on state occasions.”  And then because she was so happy she seized the little music teacher and waltzed her round and round before the mirror.  “It’s all your doing, you blessed Cousin Barbara!  See how you have metamorphosed me.”

Several days later she stood idly turning the calendar.  “This is the day of the reception,” she said; “the Averys will certainly be going home soon, and I ought to hear from Marguerite.”

But no letter came the next day, nor the next, nor all the following week, although she went to the post-office several times daily.

It grew dull waiting, with Miss Barbara gone so much, and with nothing to do.  She read the few books at her disposal, she paced up and down in the two little back bedrooms that she and Miss Barbara occupied.  She took long walks alone, but the little mining town was even smaller than Westbrooke, and she found scant material with which to fill her letters home.

The two weeks for which she had been invited came to an end, and Judith grew desperate over her fruitless trips to the post-office.  She knew that Miss Barbara had just made the payment that was due the Building and Loan Association in which she was putting her little earnings, and would be almost penniless until the end of another term.  Besides, she had accepted all that she was willing to take from the hard-worked little music teacher.

“I have packed my trunk and am going home to-morrow, Cousin Barbara,” she announced.  “Mr. Avery’s family have evidently stayed longer than Daisy expected, and she can’t have me.  Maybe some of them are ill.”

“Then she should have written and told you so,” said Miss Barbara, waxing so indignant over the neglect of her protegee that she grew eloquent on the subject of her hobby—­punctuality, especially in correspondence.