een and twenty-five cents to attract the children.

At five o'clock the Flower Festival was opened and afternoon tea was
served to the early comers. All the members of the United Service Club
and the other boys and girls of the town who helped them wore flower
costumes. It was while the Ethels were serving Mrs. Smith and the Miss
Clarks that the latter called their attention to a man who sat at a
table not far away.

"That man is your rival," they announced, smiling, to Mrs. Smith.

"My rival! How is that?" inquired Mrs. Smith.

"He wants to buy the field."

They all exclaimed and looked again at the man who sat quietly eating
his ice cream as if he had no such dreadful intentions. The Ethels,
however, recognized him as he pushed back a lock of hair that fell over
his forehead.

"Why, that's our werwolf!" they exclaimed after taking a good look at
him, and they explained how they had seen him several times in the
field, always digging a stick into the ground and examining what it
brought up.

"He says he's a botanist, and he finds so much to interest him in the
field that he wants to buy it so that he may feel free to work there,"
said Miss Clark the younger.

"That's funny," commented Ethel Blue. "He almost never looks at any
flowers or plants. He just pokes his stick in and that's all."

"He offered us a considerable sum for the property but we told him that
you had an option on it, Mrs. Smith, and we explained that we couldn't
give title anyway."

"Did his interest seem to fail?"

"He asked us a great many questions and we told him all about our aunt
and the missing cousin. I thought you might be interested to know that
some one else besides yourself sees some good in the land."

"It's so queer," said the other Miss Clark. "That land has never had an
offer made for it and here we have two within a few weeks of each
other."

"And we can't take advantage of either of them!"

The Ethels noticed later on that the man was joined by a girl about
their own age. They looked at her carefully so that they would recognize
her again if they saw her, and they also noticed that the werwolf, as he
talked to her, so often pushed back from his forehead the lock of hair
that fell over it that it had become a habit.

The full effect of the flower costumes was seen after the lanterns were
lighted, when some of the young married women attended to the tables
while their youngers marched around the lawn that all might se