old fogies!"

"Speak for yourself, Master Tom," pouted his sister.

"I do. And for you. And certainly Ruth is about as cheerful as a funeral
mute. What we all need is some fun."

"Oh, Tom, I don't feel at all like 'funning,'" sighed Ruth.

"You be right, Sonny," interjected Aunt Alvirah, who sometimes forgot that
Tom, as well as the girls, was grown up. She rose from her chair with her
usual, "Oh, my back! and oh, my bones! You young folks should be dancing
and frolicking----"

"But the war, Auntie!" murmured Ruth.

"You'll neither make peace nor mar it by worriting. No, no, my pretty! And
'tis a bad thing when young folks grow old before their time."

"You're always saying that, Aunt Alvirah," Ruth complained. "But how can
one be jolly if one does not feel jolly?"

"My goodness!" cried Tom, "you were notoriously the jolliest girl in that
French hospital. Didn't the _poilus_ call you the jolly American? And
listen to Grandmother Grunt now!"

"I suppose it is so," sighed Ruth. "But I must have used up all my fund of
cheerfulness for those poor _blesses_. It does seem as though the font of
my jollity had quite dried up."

"I wish Heavy Stone were here," said Helen suddenly. "_She'd_ make us
laugh."

"She and her French colonel are spooning down there at Lighthouse Point,"
scoffed Ruth--and not at all as Ruth Fielding was wont to speak.

"Say!" Tom interjected, "I bet Heavy is funny even when she is in love."

"_That's_ a reputation!" murmured Ruth.

"They are not at Lighthouse Point. The Stones did not go there this
summer, I understand," Helen observed.

"I am sorry for Jennie and Colonel Marchand if they are at the Stones'
city house at this time of the year," the girl of the Red Mill said.

"Bully!" cried Tom, with sudden animation. "That's just what we will do!"

"What will we do, crazy?" demanded his twin.

"We'll get Jennie Stone and Henri Marchand--he's a good sport, too, as I
very well know--and we'll all go for a motor trip. Jimminy Christmas! that
will be just the thing, Sis. We'll go all over New England, if you like.
We'll go Down East and introduce Colonel Marchand to some of our
hard-headed and tight-fisted Yankees that have done their share towards
injecting America into the war. We will----"

"Oh!" cried Ruth, breaking in with some small enthusiasm, "let's go to
Beach Plum Point."

"Where is that?" asked Helen.

"It is down in Maine. Beyond Portland. And Mr. Hammond and his company