times in acknowledgment,
uttering the words, 'Behold, it is I! who else _could_ it be?'"

She poked up the fire to a brighter blaze and then sat down beside Tiny
Armstrong on the end of a log. As she seated herself Jo Severance rose
and came forward demurely. Jo was an accomplished elocutionist, and a
born mimic. Assuming a timid, shrinking demeanor, and speaking in a
high, shrill voice, she piped,

"Mother, may I go out to swim?"
"Yes, my darling daughter,
Put on your nice new bathing suit,
But don't go near the water!"

"Don't you think it's unladylike to have your muscles all hard and
developed?"

* * * * *

Oh-Pshaw buried her face in her handkerchief with a convulsive giggle.
The voice, the intonation, the expression, were Carmen Chadwick to a T.
But how did the Alleys know about her attitude toward bathing? She had
not told anyone. Then she recalled that the Lone Wolf had walked behind
them on the pier that morning when Carmen had been talking to her. Had
the Lone Wolf also heard them talking about her? Agony wondered in a
sudden rush of embarrassment.

There was no mistaking the first "portrait." All eyes were focused upon
Carmen, and blushing and shrinking she went forward to make the required
acknowledgment.

"Beh-hold, it is I; w-who else could it be?" she faltered, and it
sounded so irresistibly funny that the listeners went into spasms of
mirth.

Carmen crept back to her place and hid her face in Katherine's lap while
Jo Severance passed on to the next "portrait." Climbing up an enormous
tree stump, she flung out her arms and began to shriek wildly, waving
back an imaginary group of girls. Then she proclaimed in important
tones: "It had broad, alternating rings of black and red, the
distinguishing marks of the coral snake, one of the seventeen poisonous
reptiles out of the one hundred and eleven species of snakes found in
the United States. It reared up and menaced me with its great, wicked--"

The remainder of her speech was lost in the great roar of laughter that
went up from old and new girls alike.

Miss Peckham turned fiery red, and looked angrily from Jo Severance to
Miss Judy, but there was no help for it; she had to go forward and claim
the portrait.

"Behold, it is I; who else _could_ it be?" she snapped, and the mirth
broke out louder than before. The "who else _could_ it be?" was so like
Miss Peckham.

One by one the other candidates were sh