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 European journey was over. Here was Katy at home again, months sooner than they expected; yet she looked remarkably cheerful and content! Clover could not understand it; she was likewise puzzled to account for one or two private conversations between Katy and papa in which she had not been invited to take part, and the occasional arrival of a letter from "foreign parts" about whose contents nothing was said.

"It seems a dreadful pity that you had to come so soon," she said one day when they were alone in their bedroom. "It's delightful to have you, of course; but we had braced ourselves to do without you till October, and there are such lots of delightful things that you could have been doing and seeing at this moment."

"Oh, yes, indeed," replied Katy, but not at all as if she were particularly disappointed.

"Katy Carr, I don't understand you," persisted Clover. "Why don't you feel worse about it? Here you have lost five months