CHAPTER I.
OFF TO COLLEGE "Do you remember what you said one October day last year, Grace, when we stood on this platform and said good-bye to the boys ?" asked Anne Pierson.
"No, what did I say ?" asked Grace Harlowe, turning to her friend Anne.
"You said," returned Anne, "that when it came your turn to go to college you were going to slip away quietly without saying good-bye to any one but your mother, and here you are with almost half Oakdale at the train to see you off to college." "Now, Anne, you know perfectly well that people are down here to see you and Miriam, too," laughed Grace.

"I'm not half as much of a celebrity as you are." Grace Harlowe, Miriam Nesbit and Anne Pierson stood on the station platform completely surrounded by their many friends, who, regardless of the fact that it was half-past seven o'clock in the morning, had made it a point to be at the station to wish them godspeed.
"This is the second public gathering this week," remarked Miriam Nesbit, who, despite the chatter that was going on around her, had heard Grace's laughing remark.
"I know it," agreed Grace.

"There was just as large a crowd here when Nora and Jessica went away last Monday.

Doesn't it seem dreadful that we are obliged to be separated?
How I hated to see the girls go.

And we won't be together again until Christmas." "Oh, here come the boys!" announced Eva Allen, who, with Marian Barber, had been standing a little to one side of the three girls.
At this juncture four smiling young men hurried through the crowd of young people and straight to the circle surrounding the three girls, where they were received with cries of: "We were afraid you'd be too late!" and, "Why didn't you get here earlier ?" "We're awfully sorry!" exclaimed David Nesbit.