?" asked Mrs. Gray, one
day at breakfast. "Is the great tennis-match that we have heard so much
about to come off, or have I forgotten the date?"

"No, this is the eventful day," replied Gertrude; "and I am so nervous
about it that I don't feel as if I could play at all."

"Nonsense! you played beautifully yesterday," said Georgie.

"There wasn't anything depending on me yesterday. It is queer how people
never do their best when it is important that they should. I feel as if
I were going to be all thumbs this morning."

"Oh, you won't. You'll get excited and forget about the thumbs,"
remarked Georgie, consolingly. "Mamma, aren't you coming to see us?"

"Yes, I think I shall; and I will bring Cannie with me. She hasn't seen
the Casino yet."

Candace had become familiar with the street side of the pretty Casino
building, and admired greatly its long facade, with the quaintly
shingled curves and balconies, and the low gables, ornamented with disks
and half suns in dull gilding,--all looking, Mrs. Gray said, as old as
if it had stood there for a couple of centuries, instead of for three or
four years only. But the street side, picturesque as it is, had by no
means prepared her for what she saw as she followed her cousin through
the entrance hall and into the quadrangle beyond.

What did she see? An open space of greenest turf, broken only by two
long curving beds of foliage plants and a stone basin from which a
fountain threw up a cool jet to refresh the air. On either hand, and on
the side from which they had entered, was a line of low buildings, with
balconies and _grilles_ of quaintly designed wood-work, windows filled
with oddly tinted glass, and at one point a clock tower of rough
masonry, over which vines were clustering. Connecting the buildings to
right and left, was a raised covered gallery, semi-circular in shape,
with a second gallery overhead; and on these ladies in fresh morning
toilettes were sitting, some with pieces of embroidery in their hands,
others collected in knots for conversation or to listen to the music of
the band.

Beyond this gallery lay another and much larger quadrangle, with lines
of trees and shrubs to veil its boundaries, on which lawn-tennis was
being played in five or six courts at once. At the back of this
quadrangle was another long low building, in the same picturesque style
as the rest, which, Mrs. Gray explained, contained on one side a
charming little theatre which could al