ng smile.

"And back of that room," continued Billie, speaking quickly, "is a long
sleeping porch that can be partitioned off into bedrooms----"

"No protection from rain and wild animals, I suppose?" put in Miss
Campbell sadly.

"Oh, yes. There is a roof overhead and a floor underneath, and it's all
enclosed with wire netting to keep out mosquitoes. It can't rain in far
enough to wet the beds and, of course, nothing else matters----"

"Clothes?" groaned the little lady.

"But khaki skirts, cousin, and rubber-soled shoes and pongee
blouses,--water couldn't injure things like that."

"I went camping once forty years ago," went on Miss Campbell, without
seeming to notice Billie's reply. "It was terrible, I assure you, it was
quite too dreadful. One night there was a storm, and the tents that were
not blown away by the high winds were swamped by rain. Our clothes all
mildewed, and the flies! I shall never forget the disgusting
flies,--they were everywhere."

"This camp couldn't possibly be blown away even by the strongest wind,"
broke in Billie, ready to refute every argument, "and the screens make
it just as comfortable as your own home would be."

"How far is it from anywhere?" demanded Miss Campbell suddenly.

Billie hesitated.

"It's twenty-five miles, but there is a good road from the railroad
station and the 'Comet' can take us across in no time. You see, there is
a little village in the valley at the foot of our mountain, and in
summer a 'bus runs twice a day with passengers and the mail, so the road
must be fairly good. Papa says lots of automobiles go over it."

"Twenty-five miles," groaned Miss Campbell.

"Twenty-five miles from a telegraph station----"

"But there is no one for you to telegraph to if Papa and I are with you,
dear Cousin, is there?" asked Billie ingenuously.

Miss Campbell's expression softened. Nothing pleased her so much as for
Billie to make one family of the three. The young cousin had become such
a fixture in her home that she had grown quite jealous of Duncan
Campbell's possessive airs with his daughter.

"One would think she really belonged to him more than to me," she would
exclaim at such times, with some unreasonableness it must be admitted.

But it was plain that the little spinster's resolutions against camping
were beginning to crumble.

"We are not to eat on the ground, then, or drink coffee from tin cups,
or sleep in our clothes, or be bitten to death by mosquit