help fill in; our folks are just choked to death in Christmas stuff.
Aunt Emily is interested in the hospital benefit, too, I believe."

"Yes, Aunt Winnie said so," replied Dorothy. "I guess most of the
Birchland ladles help with this benefit. Mrs. Brownlie has offered her
house."

"The lady with the fluffy-haired daughters?" asked Tom.

"Yes, the twins," said Dorothy. "Eva and Edith Brownlie are considered
the very prettiest girls around."

"Oh, are they?" remarked Tom in seeming earnestness. "Well, to tell you
the truth I have given up attempting to judge of girls' looks lately. It
seems to me to be all a question of hair--how deep it can be piled up."

Dorothy laughed. To call hair deep, like so much grass!

But Tom did not notice the discrepancy. Tavia turned around and shouted so
Ned covered his ear.

"Are you going to be the 'Piper's Son?'" she asked Tom.

"If there's anything to be stolen, you may put me down for the steal,"
replied Tom good-naturedly. "Even the proverbial porker might be pressed
into service for a camp outfit, eh, Ned?"

Ned replied that there were some real attractive porkers about the
Birchlands, and that they would probably not mind being stolen for a
hospital benefit.

During all this time the Fire Bird had been gliding along at the even pace
which Ned always selected for a real pleasure ride.

"A joy-ride, with no business end," he argued, "should be run off gently.
No fun in trying to talk above an atmospheric buzz-saw."

"I suppose Nat and Roland have bowled till they're stiff," remarked Tom.
"For my part, I prefer the open to those alleys on a day like this."

"Mother told me to ask you both over this evening to help fix up the play
business," said Ned, "if you have nothing else on."

"Gladly," replied Tom. "I was just hinting for an invitation. You know how
I love classics--Mother Goose will be just pie for me."

"Oh, I forgot," exclaimed Tavia suddenly. "I have an engagement for this
afternoon. I ought to go back, Ned. It must be lunch-time." And, as she
spoke, Dorothy remembered that the day was Thursday, and that Tavia was to
go on that day to see Miss Estelle Brooks, the little woman in black.

CHAPTER XIV

TAVIA'S TROUBLES

"You must contrive to help me, Nat," urged Tavia, when, an hour or so
later, she managed to get a word alone with him. "I can never deliberately
go off alone on an afternoon like this, when every one is so busy."

"You certainly ca