Valerie was never long angry, and she laughed as she answered:

"Well, Miss Wise-one, are you going to wish, and then sit back and wait to see if it 'comes true'?"

"I'll wish just for fun, but I don't believe what she said about the old well any more than you do, Valerie Dare. We'd be silly to even think that an old well had any power to grant wishes," Betty said, but Valerie laughed again.

"Then why did we bother to sit on this wall and wish?" she said.

"We might just as well wish while we're waiting along the road."

"Come on!" cried Betty. "You wished on the wall beside the well, and I'll wish as we walk along, and we'll see which gets what she wished for."

"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 sh.o.r.e, 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."

"Oh, I don't know," Valerie. "It's just as likely to be some way she's planning for a chance to show off."

Betty laughed.

"Did you hear Vera Vane telling about the afternoon that Patricia knocked at her door, and said that she had come to 'make a call'?"

"I didn't hear that," said Valerie. "What did she do?"

"She was wearing all the rings and bangles that she owned, and in her hand was a card-case, just as if she were grown up. She sat on the tip edge of her chair, and she kept taking out her handkerchief, and shaking it because it was drenched with perfumery, and when she went, she emptied the card-case on the table, and Vera counted the cards. Say, Patricia had left _fifty_. Wasn't that funny?"

"Hush--sh!" breathed Valerie, "she might hear you."

Patricia rushed forward, while Arabella, as usual, hung back, preferring to stare at Betty and Valerie through her spectacles, rather than have a little chat.

She wanted to watch their faces, and see if they were greatly surprised with the news that Patricia had to tell.

"Guess where we're going!" Patricia cried, "but you couldn't guess, so I'll tell you. We're going over to the well, the one that's called the wishing-well," she explained, "and we mustn't tell what we mean to wish for, 'cause if you tell, you wouldn't get your wish. Did you know that?"

Betty said that she had not heard that.

"I'll tell you to-morrow just how to find it, but we can't stop now.

There isn't time."

"Late!" cried Valerie. "I guess you two are late. We think we have to hurry to get to Glenmore on time, and you are going away from school every minute. Why don't you go to the well, if you want to, to-morrow."

Arabella thought that they ought to turn back, but Patricia seized her hand, and the two commenced to run.

"They'll be a half-hour late," said Valerie, looking after the flying figures.

"And 'The Fender' will be waiting for a chance to scold them when they come in," said Betty.

As they pushed the gate open, they saw a little figure disappearing around the corner of the house.

"That was Ida Mayo," said Valerie.

"I didn't see her face. Are you sure it was Ida?" Betty asked.

"Oh, it was Ida," Valerie answered, "and I do wonder why she stays in her room all the time. If she happens to come down when the girls are out, she runs, the moment she sees any of us coming."

"It's a long time ago that she was sick," Betty replied, "but she must be all right by this time. I wonder why she ran when she saw us? We don't know her well enough to stop her to talk. She's bigger than we are, and she's three cla.s.ses above us."

"Who told you she stayed in her own room all the time?" continued Betty.

"Patricia Levine said so," Valerie said.

"Why, Valerie Dare, you know Patricia tells--well--things that aren't _really_ true," said Betty.

"Well, we don't see Ida, now, as we used to," Valerie said.

"That might just happen," said Betty.

It happened that what Patricia had said was true.

The so-called "beautifier" had injured the skin so severely that it required time to heal it.

Mrs. Marvin had said that Ida was feeling far from well, which was true.

Her vanity had prompted her to do a foolish thing, and she had suffered for it, both because of her painful face, and because in her nervousness, she had cried until completely tired out.

Mrs. Marvin had talked with her kindly and wisely, she had let old Judy take her meals up to her room, and she had personally given her private instruction, for she pitied the silly girl, and sought to keep curious ones from annoying her.

Ida had hastened away when she had seen the two younger girls coming because there still were traces on her cheeks of the burning caused by the patent "beautifier," and she seemed more afraid of the comments of the younger girls, than of her own cla.s.smates.

As the two girls entered the hall they saw that the tall clock marked the time as quarter-past five.

"Fifteen minutes to fix up just a bit," said Betty. "Come on!"