“I think it would make a tremendous hit in Buffalo,” declared Tavia, wheeling around to show off the effect of her thick brown hair beneath the little row of brass rings that held the ribbon which bound the bit of flowered stuff to her neck. At the front her face seemed to fit exactly, and surely nothing could be more becoming than that Christmas bag.

“Oh, I think it’s a shame,” faltered Dorothy, “to spoil that beautiful bag to make a plaything.”

“But we all have to have ‘playthings,’” said Tavia, with a strong accent on the word “play.” Then, with one more swing around, like a figure in a show case, Tavia took off the sunbonnet and went on with her packing.

“It seems so queer,” Dorothy remarked, sliding her tennis racquet down the side of her trunk, “that we should be going in different directions. We have always been able to help each other in the packing before.”

“Well, I’d just like to leave half my old truck behind,” replied Tavia, “and I don’t know but what I will have to if this trunk won’t stretch a little. It’s chock full now, and just look at the commotion on the floor.”

“I told you,” insisted Dorothy, “that you would have to put the things in differently. Now you will have to take them all out again and roll them up tight. You can get twice as much in that way.”

“Take them all out!” Tavia almost shrieked. “Never!” And, following this exclamation the girl jumped into the trunk and proceeded to dance the “trunk traveler’s jig” on the unfortunate collection of baggage.

“Tavia! Don’t!” begged Dorothy. “I’m sure I heard something break.”

“Oh, that was my last summer’s hat breaking up its plans for this year. I put it in the bottom in hopes that it would meet an untimely end, but I really did not intend to murder it,” she joked, stepping out of the trunk.

“But at any rate,” she went on, as she flung part of the “commotion” off the floor into the hollow she had succeeded in making for the various articles, “the poor old thing will take up less room dead than alive, and there will be no possible danger of my having to wear it for a turn or two when I get home. Nothing like getting in one’s supplies while you’re fresh—before the folks have a chance to get too friendly with you. I’ve found that out.”

“But it was a real pretty hat.”

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