Chapter I: Preface

The author wishes to acknowledge gratefully the kindness of Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin and Company in allowing her to use the poem _Vantage_, by Josephine Preston Peabody in this book. She also thanks Miss Margaret Sherwood for consenting to a similar use of her poem, _Indian Summer_.

Books for girls are frankly suggestive, their value lying in their kindling power. Among the girls of all sorts who may read this story, there will be, here and there, one who loves right words. It is for the sake of such an occasional reader that the poems mentioned have been included. The schools sometimes lead their pupils to believe that English literature, like Latin, belongs to the past. But there are, here and now, "musicians of the word" who, partly because they are living, can touch our hearts as none of the dead-and-gone ones can. If through these pages some girl finds her way to the little green volume of _Singing Leaves_, or the sweet stories of _Daphne_ and _King Sylvaine and Queen Aimee_, Catherine Smith and her friends will have done the world of girls a service worth the doing.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. CATHERINE'S INSPIRATION 3
II. GETTING STARTED 15
III. ORGANIZATION 28
IV. WITH PAIL AND BROOM 46
V. A DAY OFF 58
VI. THE OPENING 71
VII. A PARTY AT POLLY'S 86
VIII. A FORTUNATE MEETING 101
IX. LANDING 109
X. THE MAKING OF A COMPACT 120
XI. BROOKMEADOW 133
XII. ARRIVAL AT WINSTED 151
XIII. CAUGHT IN A SHOWER 164
XIV. AN INTERLUDE 176
XV. SUNDAY SCHOOL 186
XVI. ALICE ON THE WAY 203
XVII. FINDING A VOCATION 212
XVIII. DOCTOR'S ORDERS 221
XIX. JOURNALISM 246
XX. THE THREE R's 254
XXI. THE LAST PARTY 271
XXII. AUF WIEDERSEHEN 284

ILLUSTRATIONS

"Here is a little souvenir for you, Judge Arthur" Frontispiece

Page

"We must find a good place for it" 17
"How much for your tickets?" 77
"Sure I am not too heavy, Karl?" 112
Frieda was telling a story and the others were
listening attentively 184