"All right," agreed Valerie, "but I do hope you'll get yours, Betty."
"I'm as likely to, as if I'd kept sitting by the well," Betty said, "for I wish for what just couldn't happen."
"Why Betty Chase! Why don't you wish for something that you've a chance of getting," said Valerie, stopping squarely in front of Betty.
"Because I have everything I want but one thing," was the quiet reply.
"And that one thing is—what?" queried Valerie.
"I love Dorothy Dainty, and I don't want to say 'good-by' to her when school closes. I'd like to be where she is this summer, but that couldn't be. You see our summer home is lovely, and we go there every year. Father and mother like the country better than the shore, but I like the beach, and the water best. Dorothy and Nancy will go home to Merrivale, but whether they spend the summer there, or go away to some other place, it won't make much difference to me. It's not likely to happen that they'll come to the quiet little town where we are to spend the summer."
Betty's merry face now wore such a sober expression that Valerie said:
"Well, I still say I wish you'd wanted something that really could happen."
At that moment some one appeared just around a bend of the road, some one wearing the gayest of colors, and with her a little old-fashioned figure in a dark brown dress.
"Look! Patricia and Arabella are coming this way, and they look as if they were planning something great. Just see how close together their heads are! I don't know Arabella very well, but when Patricia is 'up to' anything, it's pretty sure to be mischief."