“Oh!  I am so glad you are here,” she exclaimed as “Come in!” greeted her, and both Phronsie and she precipitated themselves with no show of ceremony, in front of his study table.  “O Jasper! could you get me a copy of “Town Talk?” Jack Rutherford has gone off with ours.”

“Town Talk!” repeated Jasper, raising his head from his hands to stare at her.

“Yes; Jack has taken ours off; Grandpapa gave it to him.  Can you, Jasper?  Will it break up your study much?” she poured out anxiously.

“No—­that is—­never mind,” said Jasper, pushing the book away and springing from his chair.  “But whatever in the world do you want that trash for?” He turned, and looked at her curiously.

“Mrs. Chatterton will let me read it to her; she said so,” cried Polly, clasping her hands nervously, “but if I don’t get the paper soon, why, I’m afraid she’ll change her mind.”

Jasper gave a low whistle as he flung himself into his coat.  “Inestimable privilege!” he exclaimed at last, tossing on his cap.

“Oh, Jasper! you are so good,” cried Polly in a small rapture.  “I’m so sorry to have to ask you.”

“I’ll go for you, Jasper,” declared Phronsie; “Mamsie will let me; I almost know she will.”

“No, no, Phronsie,” said Jasper, as she was flying off; “it isn’t any place for you to go to.  I shall get one at the hotel—­the Allibone.  I’ll be back in a trice, Polly.”

Polly went out, and sat down in one of the big oaken chairs in the hall to seize it as it came, and Phronsie deposited herself in an opposite chair, and watched Polly.  And presently in came Jasper, waving the desired journal.  Polly, with a beaming face, grasped it and rushed off upstairs.

“Polly,” called the boy, looking after her, “it isn’t too late now for you to go with them.  Lucy Bennett met me at the comer and she said they will take the twelve o’clock train, instead of the eleven, and she wanted me to beg you to come.”

“No, no,” tossed back Polly, rushing on, “I am quite determined to stay at home.”  Then she went into Mrs. Chatterton’s room, and closed the door.  But she couldn’t so easily shut out the longings that would rise in her heart for the Saturday outing that the other girls were to have.  How lovely it would be! the run out to Silvia Horne’s charming house some ten miles distant; the elegant luncheon they would have, followed by games, and a dance in the ball-room upstairs, that Silvia’s older sisters used for their beautiful parties.  Then the merry return before dusk, of the twelve girls, all capital friends at school!  Oh—­oh!

“You’ve been an unconscionable time,” exclaimed Mrs. Chatterton in a sharp, high key, “just to get a paper.  Well, do sit down; I am quite tired waiting for you.”

Polly sat down, and resolutely plunged into the column where the news items promised the most plentiful yield but in between the lines ran the doings of the girls:  how they were all assembling by this time at Lucy Bennett’s; how they were hurrying off to the train, and all the other delightful movements of the “outing” flashed before her eyes, as she finished item after item of her dreary task.  But how Mrs. Chatterton gloated over it!