"I am sorry you will find neither a cablegram nor me writing for you this noon. Mr. Hamilton has telephoned me that friends of ours are in town who will not have time to come out to us. So we are all to dine together in Boston to-night. I am sorry that you will have two lonely meals, and hope some of the girls will dine with you. Invite them for me, and forgive me for leaving you in such unexpected solitude.
"Yours lovingly,
"AUNT MARY."
"How sweet of her to sign herself that way," thought Ruth, as she folded the note. "I do miss her, and I'm glad there's something pleasant ahead for this afternoon."
The Social Six to a girl were prompt at the meeting-place, and as Miss Burton appeared just as the clock was striking two, the expedition started with no delay. "It's a perfect day for Bear Hill," said Dorothy enthusiastically, as she led the way with Miss Burton, and unconsciously tried to imitate her swinging gait. Since Miss Burton had taken charge of the gymnasium, Dorothy, who was always to the fore in out-of-door life, had been more than ever devoted to everything pertaining to physical culture.
"See Dolly walk," said Charlotte, who was ambling along in the extreme rear; "she walks as though she positively enjoyed the mere motion of it, while I am so lazy that I shouldn't even belong to the club if it weren't for being with the girls, and for the fun we have at our parties."
As they crossed the railroad and entered the narrow wood-path on the other side, the girls fell into single file and walked on steadily, talking gaily. It was one of those brilliant October days when all the warmth of the fleeting summer is in the air; when the sky is a radiant blue, and the red and gold of the foliage casts a glory over the sombre woods.
Ruth was enchanted. "I've never seen anything so beautiful," she said breathlessly, as, after a long walk through the winding, shaded path, they came out into the open, and almost at the top of the hill.
"Wait till you get to the tip-top," said Dorothy, her eyes sparkling from the exercise. "Can you stand it to climb for five minutes more?"
"Of course," answered Ruth stoutly, "though I'm not sorry that we're almost there," she added in a low tone to Katharine French who, with Alice Stevens and Louise Cobb, made up the membership of the club.