t.

At the end of the line came Merrill, a doubly transformed man, looking
at the same time younger and handsomer. Bigger and even more muscular
than formerly, his eyes were wide open and sparkling, his mouth had
lost its rigidity of contour. His look of severity, of asceticism had
vanished. Nothing but his classic regularity remained and that had been
beautifully colored by the weather.

The five couples wound through the trail which led from the Playground
to the Camp, the men half-carrying their wives with one arm about their
waists and the other supporting them.

The Camp had changed. The original cabins had spread by an addition of
one or two or three to sprawling bungalow size. Not an atom of their
wooden structure showed. Blocks of green, cubes of color, only open
doorways and windows betrayed that they were dwelling-places. A tide of
tropical jungle beat in waves of green with crests of rainbow up to the
very walls. There it was met by a backwash of the vines which embowered
the cabins, by a stream of blossoms which flooded and cascaded down
their sides.

The married ones stopped at the Camp. But Billy and Julia continued up
the beach.

"How did the work go to-day, Honey?" Lulu asked in a perfunctory tone as
they moved away from the Playground.

"Fine!" Honey answered enthusiastically.

"You wait until you see Recreation Hall." He stopped to light his pipe.
"Lord, how I wish I had some real tobacco! It's going to be a corker.
We've decided to enlarge the plan by another three feet."

"Have you really?" commented Lulu. "Dear me, you've torn your shirt
again."

"Yes," said Honey, puffing violently, "a nail. And we're going to have a
tennis court at one side not a little squeezed-up affair like this--but
a big, fine one. We're going to lay out a golf course, too. That will be
some job, Mrs. Holworthy D. Smith, and don't you forget it."

"Yes, I should think it would be," agreed Lulu. "Do you know, Honey,
Clara's an awful cat! She's dreadfully jealous of Peachy. The things
she says to her! She knows Pete's still half in love with her. Peachy
understands him on his art side as Clara can't. Clara simply hands it to
Pete if he looks at Peachy. Even when she knows that he knows, that we
all know, that she tried her best to start a flirtation with you."

"And to-day," Honey interrupted eagerly, "we doped out a scheme for a
series of canals to run right round the whole place--with gardens on the
bank. You se