himself."

There was no inkling in Jessie's mind, as, so murmuring and softly
barefoot, she stole up to the visitor, now motionless as a painted bird,
of a much worse trick that those freakish Henkyl Hunters might play, a
girl abetting them, too--shocking fact--before night fell again upon the
pearly Bowl.

"Oo-oo-ooo! Boo! See me reverse!" It seemed to be what the owl was
saying to the maidens as he turned the tables on them again and again
with that teetotum trick of his swivel neck.

But he did not scream any more or offer the least objection when the
merle took him to her tender breast, cooing reassurance.

"There! you've got a new singing teacher, Jess--a little screech owl.
Little! My! he's big for a small-eared owl, isn't he?--nearly a foot
long. Brush the camouflage off him--the smuts of the chimney!"

"Well--well, whether he enacted Santa Claus of his own accord, or
whether he didn't--" thus Tanpa broke in on the last flow of speech
which was a medley--"he's brought us one gift, anyway, the gift of a
glorious day for our annual White Birch celebration."

It did prove a banner day, from the breakfast out of doors on the wide
piazza in that matchless warmth of early summer when buds are bursting,
trees singing themselves into leaf--for "all deep things are song--"
when the inquisitive breeze peeps longingly into the yellow heart of the
first wild rose and May is bourgeoning, flowering, into the joy of June.

Below the bungalow the three-mile lake, a mile and a half across--the
transfigured Bowl--was still a softly glowing pearl, treasured in
cotton-wool mists which entirely hid its real framing of lofty hills.

"When the mountains cease playing blindman's buff with each other,
then--then it will be time for our morning swim, won't it? The first
real swim of the season, too," murmured Tomoke, the signaling maiden,
nestling coaxingly near to the presiding Guardian.

"Yes, if you think the water will be warm enough."

"Oh! it was quite warm yesterday when we paddled out around the
float--the floating pier." Jessie, who was tempting the feathered Santa
Claus, pampered captive under her arm, with every tidbit she could think
of, from cereal to lake-cod caught by the girls themselves, looked down
at that buoyant pier--a golden raft, at the moment--tossing a dozen
yards from the base of a fifteen-foot cliff where the shore jumped
sharply down to the water. Yesterday it had been wreathed with boughs
for the co