enth person?"
asked Aurora Blank, who had kept tally on her white-gloved fingers.

"I hope I do--there's 'luck in odd numbers' one hears. But I'm
not--I'm not! Auntie, Jim, look yonder--quick! It's Melvin! It surely
is!"

With a cry of delight Dorothy now rushed down the pier to where a
street-car had just stopped and a lad alighted. She clasped his hands
and fairly pumped them up and down in her eagerness, but she didn't
offer to kiss him though she wanted to do so. She remembered in time
that the young Nova Scotian was even shyer than James Barlow and
mustn't be embarrassed. But her questions came swiftly enough, though
his answers were disappointing.

However, she led him straight to Mrs. Calvert, his one-time hostess at
Deerhurst, and there was now no awkward shyness in his respectful
greeting of her, and the acknowledgment he made to the general
introductions which followed.

Seating himself on a rail close to Mrs. Betty's chair he explained his
presence.

"The Judge sent me to Baltimore on some errands of his own, and after
they were done I was to call upon you, Madam, and say why her father
couldn't spare Miss Molly so soon again. He missed her so much, I
fancy, while she was at San Leon ranch, don't you know, and she is to
go away to school after a time--that's why. But----"

The lad paused, colored, and was seized by a fit of his old
bashfulness. He had improved wonderfully during the year since he had
been a member of "Dorothy's House Party" and had almost conquered that
fault. No boy could be associated for so long a time with such a man
as Judge Breckenridge and fail to learn much; but it wasn't easy to
offer himself as a substitute for merry Molly, which he had really
arrived to do.

However, Dolly was quick to understand and caught his hands again,
exclaiming:

"You're to have your vacation on our Water Lily! I see, I see! Goody!
Aunt Betty, isn't that fine? Next to Molly darling I'd rather have
you."

Everybody laughed at this frank statement, even Dolly herself; yet
promptly adding the name of Melvin Cook to her list of passengers.
Then as he walked forward over the plank to where Jim Barlow smilingly
awaited him, carrying his small suit-case--his only luggage, she
called after him:

"I hope you brought your bugle! Then we can have 'bells' for time, as
on the steamer!"

He nodded over his shoulder and Dorothy strained her eyes toward the
next car approaching over the street line, while M