. "I've passed ten thousand cups of tea, and
twenty thousand sandwiches. Don't you pity and despise people that
don't know any better than to come to a thing indoors on a hot day?"

Helen smiled. "But you came," she said.

"But I had to. When any of my relations give a tea I am always
tethered to a tray and a plate of biscuits." She stopped suddenly and
looked at Helen keenly, with a stare that puzzled the girl. Then she
jumped up and seated herself upon the bed, rumpling the counterpane.
In the few minutes since she had entered the room she had made the
place look as if a whirlwind had swept through it, and Helen felt a
nervous fear of Miss Armstrong's walking in and witnessing her untidy
condition.

"Do you like it here?" she enquired directly.

"Yes, I--think I do. Algonquin is so beautiful, but--"

"But you can't stand my poky aunts, and Grandma's jokes, eh?"

"Oh, no," cried Helen aghast. "Both the Misses Armstrong have been
very kind and Mrs. Armstrong is delightful--but, of course, I get
homesick." She stopped suddenly for that was a subject upon which she
dared not dwell.

The other girl stared. "My goodness. I would love to know what
homesickness is like, just for once. I've never been away from home
except for a visit somewhere in the holidays, and then I was always
having such a ripping time, that the thought of going home made me
sick."

She sat for a little while, again looking steadily at Helen. "You
certainly are pretty," she exclaimed. "There's no doubt about that."

"I beg your pardon!" said Helen amazed, and doubting if she had heard
aright.

"Oh, nothing, never mind!" cried the other with a laugh. She tore off
her costly hat and flung it on top of the table. Then she threw
herself backwards on the bed staring at the ceiling. She made such a
complete wreck of the starched pillow covers and the prim white
bedspread that were the pride of Miss Armstrong's heart, that Helen
shuddered.

"Well, I don't wonder at you getting homesick here. These ceilings are
such a vast distance away they make you feel as if you were a hundred
miles from everywhere. I remember sleeping in this room once, when
there was an epidemic of scarlet fever or something among the Armstrong
kids. All the well ones were dumped on our aunts, after the custom of
the family, and I was sent off with a dozen others and we were marooned
upstairs, like a gang of prisoners, the girls in this room and the boys