--he has met Camellia before. He knows
how she will be looking when she comes down. He admires Camellia very
much, and he might possibly feel a little odd--in tennis flannels----"

"It's queer," murmured the Philosopher. "But perhaps I'd better not be
behind in the procession, even if I wilt my collar." He fingered
lovingly the soft, rolled-over collar of his white shirt, with its
loose-knotted tie, and sighed again. Then he moved toward the stairs.

We were all on the porch when Camellia came down. The Gay Lady had put
on a white muslin--the finest, simplest thing. The Philosopher, pushing
a finger between his collar and his neck, to see if the wilting process
had begun, eyed the Gay Lady approvingly. "Whatever she wears," he
whispered to her, "she can't win over you."

The Gay Lady laughed. "Yes, she can," she declared.

* * * * *

She did. Camellia was a vision when she came floating out upon the
porch. The Philosopher was glad he had on his dinner-coat--I saw it in
his eye. The Skeptic's tanned cheek turned a reddish shade--he looked as
if he felt pigeon-toed. The Gay Lady held her pretty head high as she
smiled approval on the guest. Camellia's effect on the Gay Lady was to
make her feel like a school-girl--she had repeatedly avowed it to me
in private.

Camellia never seemed conscious of her fine attire--that could always
truthfully be said. Although on the present occasion she was dressed as
duchesses dress for a lawn-party, she seemed supremely unconscious of
the fact. The only trouble was that the rest of us could not be
unconscious of it.

The dinner moved slowly. We all did our best, including the Philosopher,
whose collar was slowly melting, so that he had to keep his chin well
up, lest it crush the linen hopelessly beneath. The Skeptic joked
ceaselessly, but one could see that all the time he feared his cravat
might be awry. The dinner itself was a much more formal affair than
usual--somehow that always seemed necessary when Camellia was one's
guest. We were glad when it was over and we could go back to the cool
recesses of the porch.

The next morning Camellia wore an unpretentious dress of white--one
which made the thing the Gay Lady had worn at dinner the evening before
seem to her memory poor indeed. Later in the morning the Skeptic took
Camellia boating on the river, and she went up and dressed for it in a
yachting suit of white flannel. It was some slight consol