days," I assented.

The Gay Lady was standing in front of the closet in her room, in which
hung a row of frocks, on little hangers covered with pale blue ribbon.
She sighed pensively as she gazed at the garments. Then she looked at me
with a smile. "Would you mind if I keep to my room while Camellia is
here?" she asked.

"I should mind very much," said I. "Besides, I've only two good dresses
myself."

I went down to the porch. "Camellia is going to stop and make us a short
visit on her way home from the South," I announced.

The Skeptic sat up. "Great guns!" he ejaculated. "I must send all my
trousers to be pressed."

"Who's Camellia?" queried the Philosopher, looking up calmly from
his book.

"Wait and see," replied the Skeptic.

"Probably I shall," agreed the Philosopher. "Meanwhile a little
information might not come amiss. Sending all one's trousers to be
pressed at once sounds to me serious. Is the lady a connoisseur in
men's attire?"

"She may or may not be," said the Skeptic. "The effect is the same. At
sight of her my cravat gets under my ear, my coat becomes shapeless, my
shoes turn pigeon-toed. We have to dress for dinner every night when
Miss Camellia is here."

"I won't," said the Philosopher shortly.

"Wait and see," chuckled the Skeptic. He looked at me. "Ask her,"
he added.

The Philosopher's fine blue eyes were lifted once more from his book. It
was a scientific book, and the habit of inquiry is always strong upon
your scientist. "Do _you_ dress for dinner when Miss Camellia is here?"
he asked of me. "That is--I mean in a way which requires a dinner-coat
of us?"

"I think I won't--before she comes," I said. "Afterward--I get out the
best I have."

"Which proves none too good," supplemented the Skeptic.

"It's July," said the Philosopher thoughtfully. He looked down at his
white ducks. "Couldn't you wire her not to come?" he suggested after
a moment.

The Skeptic grinned at me. I shook my head. He shook his head.

"We don't want her not to come," he said, more cheerfully. "She's worth
it. To see her is a liberal education. To clothe her would be ruin and
desolation. Brace up, Philo--she's certainly worth all the agony of mind
she may cause you. I only refrain from falling head over ears in love
with her by keeping my hand in my pocket, feeling over my loose change
and reminding myself that it's all I have--and it wouldn't buy her a
handkerchief."

The Gay Lady spent the morning fr