the Belden House piazza for what Katherine called a "high
old talk."

How the tongues wagged! Eleanor Watson had come straight from her
father's luxurious camp in the Colorado mountains, where she and Jim had
been having a house-party for some of their Denver friends.

"You girls must all come out next summer," she declared
enthusiastically. "Father sent a special invitation to you, Betty, and
he and--and--mother"--Eleanor struggled with the new name for the
judge's young wife--"are coming on to commencement, and then of course
you'll all meet them. Mother is so jolly--she knows just what girls
like, and she enters into all the fun, just like one of us. Of course
she is absurdly young," laughed Eleanor, as if the stepmother's youth
had never been her most intolerable failing in her daughter's eyes.

Babbie had been abroad, on an automobile trip through France. She looked
more elegant than ever in a chic little suit from Paris, with a toque to
match, and heavy gloves that she had bought in London.

"I've got a pair for each of you in my trunk," she announced, "and
here's hoping I didn't mix up the sizes."

"Sixes for me," cried Bob.

"Five and a-half," shrieked Babe.

"Six and a-half," announced Katherine, "and you ought to have brought me
two pairs, because I wear mine out more than twice as fast as anybody
else."

"What kind of a summer have you had, K?" asked Babe, who never wrote
letters, and therefore seldom received any.

"Same old kind," answered Katherine cheerfully. "Mended twenty dozen
stockings, got breakfast for seven hungry mouths every morning, played
tennis with the boys and Polly, tutored all I could, sent out father's
bills,--oh, being the oldest of eight is no snap, I can tell you, but,"
Katherine added with a chuckle, "it's lots of fun. Boys do like you so
if you're rather decent to them."

"I just hate being an only child," declared Bob hotly. "What's the use
of a place in the country unless there are children to wade in the
brook, and chase the chickens and ride the horses? Next summer I'm going
to have fresh-air children up there all summer, and you
two"--indicating the other B's--"have got to come and help save them
from early deaths."

"All right," said Babe easily, "only I shall wade too."

"And you've got to wash them up before I can touch them," stipulated the
fastidious Babbie. "Where have you been all summer, Rachel?"

"Right at home, helping in an office during the day and tu