straying back to the
light-footed dancers.

"It looks easy, twirling those ribbons around the poles, but isn't it
rather warm weather, for dancing?"

Ivy turned upon him a pair of eyes full of pity for his ignorance.

"Why, it would be lovely! I'm sure I'd never think of the heat if--"
she glanced eloquently at the crutches which leaned against the tree.

"It's too bad, at a time like this especially; I shouldn't like that
either! Though my dancing days are past, I like to walk a lot and
gather 'yarbs an' things,'" he said. Taking up the big black book, he
displayed a collection of pressed plants, leaves and flowers, in which
Ivy took so much interest that he showed her through the book,
explaining the value and rarity of his treasures gathered from many
places, and relating incidents connected with his travels in search of
them.

Ivy gave a sigh of admiration.

"How lovely to travel that way! One could write a book about it!"

"Do you like to write? I hope then you will get a chance some day to
visit all those countries."

Ivy shook her head.

"Not hopping around on those," she said bitterly, and with a few
sympathetic questions he drew from her the sad story of her affliction.
She was afterwards surprised at her own volubility, being, as a rule,
very shy with strangers.

"I have seen children who were even worse than you completely cured,"
he said; he related several instances while Ivy listened with flaming
cheeks and glistening eyes. A dozen questions trembled on her tongue
when a crowd of girls came along, one of whom paused beside her, saying,

"Ivy, Ivy, come on! Don't you hear the bell?"

"Oh, Laura, I forgot all about eating," said Ivy somewhat ruefully.

The stranger smiled.

"Then you are the only one to forget, for see, the youngsters are
racing from everywhere right upon us." He glanced at his watch. "Four
o'clock--it's time for me to seek my place at the visitors' table!" He
picked up his book and hat while the girls hurried away.

The children assembled in front of the Towers and marched in five
battalions headed by chiefs wearing different colored tissue-paper
wreaths.

Laura with yellow roses led the yellow-capped tots; Vera with blue
flowers, the blue-capped ones; Hermione crowned with lilacs, the
lavender; Ivy in crimson roses, the red, and Alene in pink roses, the
pink.

A few of the children marched in wrong companies. Lois, despite her
blue cap, clung closely to he