“Girls!” Adele Doring exclaimed, as at last she stood with hat and coat on, “I feel like crying one moment, and then the very next, I want to skip and shout for joy. Of course I am sorry to leave Madame Deriby and all of our dear friends, but oh, I am so eager to see my adorable mother and my giant daddy that it seems as though I can’t wait for the train to take me there. I almost wish Captain Nelson would appear and take us in his airplane.”
“If you would like to see some one who is radiantly happy, look at Starr!” Doris Drexel called, then she added, “I don’t think it’s a bit nice of her to be so glad to leave us.”
Every one turned to look at the graceful, well-gowned girl who had suddenly appeared in the doorway, her eyes fairly glowing.
“I don’t want to leave you!” Starr cried. “I want to take every one of you to my wonderful prairie home, and some day, you must come, all of you, and meet my splendid brothers, and see the cornfields and the sunsets. Promise me that you will.”
“Indeed I will, if Mummie and fate will permit,” Adele Doring declared. Then a gong in the corridor called them, and, bidding farewell to Apple-Blossom Alley, where they had had so many pleasant times, they trooped down to the lower hall where Madame Deriby and the other teachers stood. There were tears in the eyes of the matron, and yet she was smiling, as she said good-bye.
“I shall be lonely without my girls,” she told them, “but most of you are to return in the fall.”
Then Adele, who had been appointed spokesman, stepped forward. “Madame Deriby and all of our kind teachers,” she said earnestly, “we wish to thank you for having made this winter one of the happiest and most profitable of our short lives. The girls have asked me to say that we love you and are grateful,” she added simply.
Then Arthur Ellsworth appeared with the tally-ho. He had taken the boys to the station and returned for the girls. Patrick followed with another merry crowd in the school bus.
As they rolled down the deserted wooded hill road, they sang a song which Adele had composed, “Farewell, Dear Linden Hall,” and so sweet were their mingled voices that even the birds paused their caroling to listen.
Then, as they drew up to the station, Adele called, “Sunnysiders, here endeth another chapter, and the next will be——”