aled a breath of the delicious
air.

"In all my life I never slept as I did last night," she announced. "Did
somebody put sleeping drops in my coffee, I wonder?"

"I fancy the sleeping drops fell in the night in the form of showers,"
observed Mary from her cot at the end of the line. "There was no storm,
just one of those quiet steady rains, and I never saw people sleep so
hard. I thought you were all dead until I heard Miss Campbell----" Mary
paused and blushed. "That is, until I heard some one breathing very
heavily."

"Now, Mary Price, don't tell me you heard me snore. I never did such a
thing in my life," cried Miss Campbell.

With a laugh, Billie leapt from her bed and ran to take a cold plunge
in the mountain water which gurgled from the faucet with the pleasant
song it had not left off singing when it leaped out of the side of the
rock into the pipe.

At seven o'clock came the clarion call for breakfast: inviting and
persuasive it was, with a lingering last note that fell softly on the
ear and gradually died into discreet silence.

[Illustration]

"Mr. Lupo blows the horn with so much expression," said Elinor. "I
really think he must have had long experience in summoning people to
breakfast who were never ready. He'll be giving 'Weber's Invitation to
the Dance' for dinner, I suppose."

They had finished their morning toilets in the locker room, and were
about to go downstairs when something tapped against one of the bamboo
blinds. Billie promptly drew it up and looked into the clearing below.

"Who's tapping at our chamber door?" she demanded.

A long fishing pole on which dangled five little nosegays made of ferns
and grasses and wild asters was thrust at her. "Why, Algernon Percival,"
she called. "I never dreamed you were so energetic."

"Not guilty," answered that young man's voice from the lower porch.
"When the bugle sounded just now, I was taking a shower bath. I'm still
busy, but it doesn't take long to get into camping clothes. Who is the
only person we know who would get up at dawn and go tramping off for
wild flowers?"

A tall, lanky figure stepped out from the shadow of the gallery and
lifted his handsome, thoughtful face up to the girls leaning over the
railing.

"Why, it's Ben Austen," they cried. "Dear old Ben, when did you come?"

"Last night at ten o'clock," he answered. "The 'bus wouldn't come up
from the village at that hour, so I walked. It was great. How are all of
you?" he