arder must have come on it, the
girl that's going to teach in Miss Hasting's room."

"I thought your aunt said you weren't to call her a boarder."

The girl put her paddle across the canoe and leaned back with a burst
of laughter. She was handsome at any time, but particularly so when
she laughed, showing a row of perfect teeth and a merry gleam in her
black eyes.

"Poor old Auntie! Isn't she a joke? She's scared the family
escutcheon of the Armstrongs will be sullied forever with the blot of a
boarder on it. Auntie Bell is nearly as bad too. My! I hope they
won't expect us to trot her around in our set."

"Why?" asked young Mr. Hamilton. He was always interested in new girls.

"Too many girls in it already. You know that, Fred Hamilton."

"Well, I say, I believe you're right, Les," he ventured, but with some
hesitation. He was a rather nice young fellow, with the inborn idea
that, theoretically, there couldn't be too many girls, but there was no
denying the fact that Algonquin seemed to have more than her fair
share. Only, Leslie was always so startlingly truthful, it was
sometimes rather disconcerting to hear one's half-formed thoughts
spoken out incisively as was her way.

"There does seem to be an awful swarm of them," he admitted
reluctantly, "especially since the Harrisons and the Wests came to
town. I danced twenty-five times without drawing breath at Polly's
last spree, and never twice with the same girl. Where did she pick 'em
all up, anyway?"

That was the last remark they could remember having made. And the girl
was wont to explain that the thing which happened next was a just
judgment upon the young man for uttering such sentiments, and a fearful
warning for his future. But the most elaborate explanations could
never quite solve the mystery, for they never knew how it chanced that
the next moment the canoe was over and they were in the water. To a
girl of Algonquin, a canoe upset was inexcusable; to a boy, a disgrace
never to be lived down. So when Leslie Graham and Fred Hamilton, who
had been born and brought up on the shores of the lake and had learned
to swim and walk simultaneously, found themselves in the water, the
first expression in their eyes, after an instant's startled surprise,
was one of indignation.

"What on earth did you do?" gasped the girl, and "What on earth did you
do?" sputtered the boy.

And then, being the girl she was, Leslie Graham burst out laughing,
"'W