June brought all the young people home again. It brought, also, a great deal of talk concerning plans for vacation. Bessie—Elizabeth—said they must all go away.  
From James Blaisdell this brought a sudden and vigorous .
 
"Nonsense, you've just got home!" he exclaimed. "Hillerton'll be a vacation to you all right. Besides, I want my family together again. I haven't seen a thing of my children for six months."
 
Elizabeth gave a silvery laugh. (Elizabeth had learned to give very silvery laughs.) She her shoulders daintily and looked at her rings.
 
"Hillerton? Ho! You wouldn't really us to Hillerton all summer, daddy."
 
"What's the matter with Hillerton?"
 
"What isn't the matter with Hillerton?" laughed the daughter again.
 
"But I thought we—we would have lovely trips," her mother apologetically. "Take them from here, you know, and stay overnight at hotels around. I've always wanted to do that; and we can now, dear."
 
"Auto trips! Pooh!" shrugged Elizabeth. "Why, mumsey, we're going to
the shore for July, and to the mountains for August. You and daddy and
I. And Fred's going, too, only he'll be at the Gaylord camp in the
Adirondacks, part of the time."
"Is that true, Fred?" James Blaisdell's eyes, on his son, were half wistful, half accusing.
 
Fred stirred restlessly.
 
"Well, I sort of had to, governor," he apologized. "Honest, I did. There are some things a man has to do! Gaylord asked me, and—Hang it all, I don't see why you have to look at me as if I were committing a crime, dad!"
 
"You aren't, dear, you aren't," fluttered Fred's mother hurriedly; "and
I'm sure it's lovely you've got the chance to go to the Gaylords' camp.
And it's right, quite right, that we should travel this summer, as
Bessie—er—Elizabeth suggests. I never thought; but, of course, you
young people don't want to be hived up in Hillerton all summer!"
"Bet your life we don't, mater," shrugged Fred, carefully avoiding his father's eyes, "after all that grind."
 
"GRIND, Fred?"
 
But Fred had turned away, and did not, , hear his father's grieved question.
 
Mr. Smith learned all about the vacation plans a day or two later from
Benny.
"Yep, we're all goin' away for all summer," he repeated, after he had told the destination of most of the family. "I don't think ma wants to, much, but she's goin' on account of Bess. Besides, she says everybody who is anybody always goes away on vacations, of course. So we've got to. They're goin' to the beach first, and I'm goin' to a boys' camp up in Vermont—Mellicent, she's goin' to a girls' camp. Did you know that?"
 
Mr. Smith shook his head.
 
"Well, she is," nodded Benny. "She tried to get Bess to go—Gussie Pennock's goin'. But Bess!—my you should see her nose go up in the air! She said she wa'n't goin' where she had to wear great coarse shoes an' middy-blouses all day, an' build fires an' walk miles an' eat an' ."
 
"Is Miss Mellicent going to do all that?" smiled Mr. Smith.
 
"Bess says she is—I mean, ELIZABETH. Did you know? We have to call her that now, when we don't forget it. I forget it, mostly. Have you seen her since she came back?"
 
"No."
 
"She's swingin' an awful lot of style—Bess is. She makes dad dress up in his swallow-tail every night for dinner. An' she makes him and Fred an' me stand up the minute she comes into the room, no matter if there's forty other chairs in sight; an' we have to STAY standin' till she sits down—an' sometimes she stands up a-purpose, just to keep US . I know she does. She says a gentleman never sits when a lady is standin' up in his presence. An' she's lecturin' us all the time on the way to eat an' talk an' act. Why, we can't even walk natural any longer. An' she says the way Katy serves our meals is a disgrace to any family."
 
"How does Katy like that?"
 
"Like it! She got mad an' gave notice on the spot. An' that made ma 'most have hysterics—she did have one of her headaches—'cause good hired girls are awful scarce, she says. But Bess says, Pooh! we'll get some from the city next time that know their business, an' we're goin' away all summer, anyway, an' won't ma please call them 'maids,' as she ought to, an' not that 'hired girl.' Bess loves that word. Everything's 'plebeian' with Bess now. Oh we're havin' great times at our house since Bess—ELIZABETH—came!" grinned Benny, tossing his cap in the air, and dancing down the walk much as he had danced the first night Mr. Smith saw him a year before.
 
The James Blaisdells were hardly off to shore and camp when Miss started on her travels. Mr. Smith learned all about her plans, too, for she came down one day to talk them over with Miss Maggie.
 
Miss Flora was looking very well in a soft gray and white summer silk. Her forehead had lost its lines of care, and her eyes were no longer peering for wrinkles. Miss Flora was actually almost pretty.
 
"How nice you look!" exclaimed Miss Maggie.
 
"Do I?" panted Miss Flora, as she fluttered up the steps and sank into one of the porch chairs.
 
"Indeed, you do!" exclaimed Mr. Smith admiringly. Mr. Smith was putting up a trellis for Miss Maggie's new rosebush. He was working faithfully, but not with the skill of accustomedness.
 
"I'm so glad you like it!" Miss Flora settled back into her chair and smoothed out the across her lap. "It isn't too gay, is it? You know the six months are more than up now."
 
"Not a bit!" exclaimed Mr. Smith.
 
"No, indeed!" cried Miss Maggie.
 
"I hoped it wasn't," sighed Miss Flora happily. "Well, I'm all packed but my dresses."
 
"Why, I thought you weren't going till Monday," said Miss Maggie.
 
"Oh, I'm not."
 
"But—it's only Friday now!"
 
Miss Flora laughed shamefacedly.
 
"Yes, I know. I suppose I am a little ahead of time. But you see, I ain't used to packing—not a big trunk, so—and I was so afraid I wouldn't get it done in time. I was going to put my dresses in; but Mis' Moore said they'd wrinkle , if I did, and, of course, they would, when you come to think of it. So I shan't put those in till Sunday night. I'm so glad Mis' Moore's going. It'll be so nice to have somebody along that I know."
 
"Yes, indeed," smiled Miss Maggie.
 
"And she knows everything—all about tickets and checking the baggage, and all that. You know we're only going to be personally conducted to Niagara. After that we're going to New York and stay two weeks at some nice hotel. I want to see Grant's Tomb and the , and Mis' Moore wants to go to Coney Island. She says she's always wanted to go to Coney Island just as I have to Niagara."
 
"I'm glad you can take her," said Miss Maggie .
 
"Yes, and she's so pleased. You know, even if she has such a nice family, and all, she hasn't much money, and she's been awful nice to me lately. I used to think she didn't like me, too. But I must have been mistaken, of course. And 'twas so with Mis' Benson and Mis' Pennock, too. But now they've invited me there and have come to see me, and are SO interested in my trip and all. Why, I never knew I had so many friends, Maggie. Truly I didn't!"
 
Miss Maggie said nothing, but, there was an odd expression on her face.
Mr. Smith pounded a small nail home with an extra blow of his hammer.
"And they're all so kind and interested about the money, too," went on Miss Flora, gently rocking to and fro. "Bert Benson sells stocks and invests money for folks, you know, and Mis' Benson said he'd got some splendid-payin' ones, and he'd let me have some, and—"
 
"Flo, you DIDN'T take any of that Benson gold-mine stock!" interrupted
Miss Maggie sharply.
Mr. Smith's hammer stopped, suspended in mid-air.
 
"No; oh, no! I asked Mr. Chalmers and he said better not. So I didn't." Miss Maggie relaxed in her chair, and Mr. Smith's hammer fell with a gentle tap on the nail-head. "But I felt real bad about it—when Mis' Benson had been so kind as to offer it, you know. It looked sort of—of ungrateful, so."
 
"Ungrateful!" Miss Maggie's voice vibrated with indignant scorn.
"Flora, you won't—you WON'T invest your money without asking Mr.
Chalmers's advice first, will you?"
"But I tell you I didn't," retorted Miss Flora, with unusual sharpness, for her. "But it was good stock, and it pays splendidly. Jane took some. She took a lot."
 
"Jane!—but I thought Frank wouldn't let her."
 
"Oh, Frank said all right, if she wanted to, she might. I suspect he got tired of her teasing, and it did pay splendidly. Why, 'twill pay twenty-five per cent, probably, this year, Mis' Benson says. So Frank give in. You see, he felt he'd got to Jane some way, I s'pose, she's so cut up about his selling out."
 
"Selling out!" exclaimed Miss Maggie.
 
"Oh, didn't you know that? Well, then I HAVE got some news!" Miss Flora gave the satisfied little with which a born news-lover always prefaces her choicest bit of information. "Frank has sold his grocery stores—both of 'em."
 
"Why, I can't believe it!" Miss Maggie fell back with a puzzled frown.
 
"SOLD them! Why, I should as soon think of his—his selling himself," cried Mr. Smith. "I thought they were inseparable."
 
"Well, they ain't—because he's separated 'em." Miss Flora was rocking a little faster n............