a well-built lad of
fifteen, with a bearing that showed him to be above his associates, of
whom he proclaimed himself the leader by collaring the angry boy who
had made the attack on Alene. Then the berry-pickers came hurrying
along with cries of, "A rescue, a rescue!" and the strange boys fled,
leaving the girls mistresses of the field.

Alene was surprised to find herself a heroine. The girls declared the
day lost but for her, and the boys, who had all witnessed the last of
the engagement, were loud in her praises.

"I heard that big boy say you were a brave little thing and I agree
with him," declared Hugh, who had experienced a sudden compunction for
his hasty judgment in the caterpillar affair.

Whereupon the last vestige of Alene's resentment vanished.

"I think I'm entitled to some of the glory," remarked Mat modestly,
joining the group around the re-arranged feast. "Didn't I, with
remarkable foresight, provide the pail of water for Alene to drown the
enemy in?"

CHAPTER IX

TISSUE-PAPER HATS

Blame it all on those tissue-paper hats; the surprise and horror of
good Mrs. Ramsey when she beheld Alene Dawson among that madcap crowd,
skipping along gaily intent on her play, unobserving the pained
expression of the portly lady who was coming up the other side of the
street. Mrs. Ramsey had stopped suddenly, "so flustrated by the
sight," as she said later, that she had not the strength to hail Alene
and when her breath came it was too late, the happy crowd had passed
from sight around the corner leading to the fields, and her feeble,
"Why, Alene Dawson, I'll tell your Uncle about this!" sounded no
farther than her own ears.

Panting with indignation and the heat of the day, she resumed her way
up the steep street and in due time reached her home, a showy, buff
brick house with fancy turrets and pointed roofs and tiny windows with
wooden ornamentations, that gave warning of the interior, where none of
the rooms was of good size or well proportioned. Most of the space on
the first floor was taken by the reception hall which was not often
used and the whole gave the impression of being built to show off the
hall, of which its owner was very proud.

She was also very proud of her two daughters, Hermione and Vera, whom
she found on this occasion sitting in the study, a tiny alcove on the
second story, which overlooked the garden. They were apparently deep
in the mysteries of a French grammar which V