are not going to help Alice much longer,"
Laura said, pleasantly. "So we have come to see if you would like
another position for a few weeks?"

"What d'ye mean--a _job_?" proposed Liz-Bean, bluntly.

"Ye-yes," said Laura, rather taken aback.

"What doin'?"

"Why, we girls are going camping. There are seven of us--and Mrs.
Morse. Mrs. Morse is the mother of my friend, here, Josephine
Morse----"

"Please ter meet yer," interposed Liz, bobbing a little courtesy at
the much amused Jess.

Laura went on steadily, and without smiling too broadly at Liz:

"There are seven of us girls and Mrs. Morse. We shall live very
simply--in tents and in a cabin, on Acorn Island."

"Eight in fam'bly, eh?" put in the thin girl. "Eight is a bigger
contract than I got here."

"Oh! in camping out we don't expect anything fancy," Laura hastened to
say. "We want somebody to make beds, and wash dishes, and clean up
generally. Of course, the cooking will not _all_ fall on your
shoulders----"

"I sh'd hope not," said Liz, briskly. "Not if it was as solid as some
folkses' biscuits. One woman I worked for once made her soda-riz
biscuits so solid that if a panful had fell on yer shoulders 'twould
ha' broke yer back."

Jess _had_ to explode at that, but the odd girl did not even smile.
She only stared at the giggling Jess and asked:

"Ain't ye well?"

"Oh, yes!" gasped Jess.

"Well, I didn't know," drawled Liz. "My a'nt what brought me up useter
keep a bottle of giggle medicine for us gals. An' it was nasty tastin'
stuff, too. She made us take a gre't spoonful if we laffed at table,
or after we gotter bed nights. There was jala inter it, I b'lieve. I
guess I could make ye some."

Jess stopped laughing in a hurry. Laura tried to ignore her chum's
indignant look; but it was quite plain that Lizzie Bean "had all her
wits about her," as the saying is.

"Then you can cook?" Laura observed.

"Well, I can boil water without burnin' it," declared the odd girl.
"But I ain't no Woodruff-Wisteria chef." Afterward the chums figured
it out that Liz meant "Waldorf-Astoria."

"Do you think you would like to go with us?" Laura asked.

"I dunno yet. Where is it?"

Laura explained more fully about the camping site, how they were to
get there, and other particulars of the project.

"It listens good," Liz said, reflectively. "Though I ain't never
cooked nothin' but soft-soap over a campfire."

"Oh! there will be a portable stove," Laura said