cots? I could hardly
keep from falling into one of them."

"You may fall into one as soon as you choose," said Josephine,
gleefully. "The one on the southeast corner is yours, the one with the
blue Japanese rug on the floor and the wicker chair with the blue
cushion. We've sent a telephone message to the rest of your family, so
they won't expect you back."

Jarvis, returning with Max from the bestowal of his horses in the barn,
found his mother and the two girls sitting in a row upon a rustic seat
at a little distance from the tent, their faces toward the camp fire, now
a mere flicker, which nobody had taken the trouble to revive. It was too
hot a night for camp fires, except as welcoming beacons.

"Well?" questioned Jarvis, standing before the three, upon whom the
bright midsummer moonlight streamed so luminously that the white figures
were visible in every detail.

"Well?" responded Josephine.

"Very well, I think," added Mrs. Burnside.

"More than well!" And Sally clasped her hands in a way both
characteristic and eloquent. "A dozen tonics couldn't have made me feel
so much stronger as the notion of sleeping in that big white tent. I
wish I knew just what the thermometer says it is in the flat at home.
Oh, poor Uncle Timmy, and Bob and Alec! How I wish they were here--don't
you, Max?"

It would have taken a harder heart than that which beat wearily in Max's
breast to allow him to answer his sister sullenly.

"You like it, Sally?" he asked, taking a position where the moonlight did
not illumine his face.

"Like it!" she exclaimed. "Jo says we're to stay if you are willing--live
in this tent, and have the others out, and Mary Ann Flinders! We won't
need Mary Ann long. I'll be strong enough myself to cook in another week.
Oh, wasn't it dear and kind of these people to plan this for us?"

What could he do or say against it all without seeming a churl and an
ingrate? But before he could formulate the inwardly grudging yet
outwardly appreciative reply he felt forced to make, Jarvis himself had
interposed with a flow of lively talk, explaining to Sally various
details of arrangement, and sparing Max the necessity of making any
insincere speeches. And the next thing that happened was the setting
forth by Josephine, on the table in the tent's outer room, of a light but
tempting supper, brought from home in a hamper--the product of no Mary
Ann Flinders, but of the Burnside cook.

"Mm--mm!" The soft but eloquent