nswered Kitty. "We can't get him within a stone's throw of
Gay. I teased him so unmercifully in my letters about the girl who had
asked for his picture to put in her group of heroes that he won't even
look in her direction."

As Lloyd greeted Malcolm, whom she had not seen since the close of the
summer vacation, and then stood talking with him while Allison
introduced Rob to her guest, she was conscious that Rob was watching
every motion, and making note of it, to tease her afterward. A few
moments later, when they were all discussing a choice of places for the
picnic-grounds, he edged over to her.

"Now I understand what you mean," he said, in a low voice. "Malcolm
didn't say anything about that red coat. He just gave a sort of quick,
pleased glance at it, as if it had hit him hard, and made some gallant
speech about a Kentucky cardinal. I tried my best to follow suit. So
when I was introduced, I gave the same kind of a glad start when I saw
her hair, and was about to make a similar reference to a Texas redbird,
when my courage failed me. So I just stood off and fired the name at her
in thought till I'm sure she understood."

"You mean thing!" exclaimed Lloyd, under her breath. "Her hair isn't
red. It's just a deep, rich, bronzy auburn, and perfectly lovely. I do
wish I'd nevah said anything. Now you'll not act natural, and you won't
like each othah as I had hoped you would."

A gayer picnic party never started down the pike than the one that went
laughing along the road that winter morning, under barbed-wire fences,
through pasture gates, across bare woodlands, and over frozen
corn-fields. It was a still gray morning, with the chill of snow in the
air, and presently the snow began to fall in big feathery flakes.

Gay was delighted. She held up her face to let the cold, star-shaped
crystals settle on it. She caught them on her sleeve to marvel over
their airy beauty. "It's like frozen thistle-down!" she cried. "I hope
it will snow all day and all night until everything is covered. I never
saw a white Christmas."

"This will stop the skating," said Allison, "unless we had a broom to
sweep the ice as it falls."

Rob offered to go back for one, but they were so far on their way they
all protested it would not be worth while.

"How much farthah is it?" asked Lloyd, presently. For the last half-mile
she had had nothing to say, and had fallen behind the others.

"I'm so tiahed I can hardly take another step."

Ro