turned deaf
ears upon her aggrieved children.

"Not a bit of silver packed away or anything, with that yellow-haired
Lizzie! And anyway, it'll only be two or three weeks before school
opens." Which was, of course, scant comfort!

"Oh, I thought I'd walk over and see if Ginny's home yet."

"Of course she isn't. Camp Fairview doesn't close until September
second. I wish _I'd_ gone there! Where's Graham?"

Isobel stretched her daintily-clad self in the chintz-cushioned chair
that Gyp had vacated.

"He went out to Highacres to see the changes. Won't it seem funny to go
to school in old Uncle Peter's house?"

For the moment Gyp and Tibby forgot to feel bored.

"It'll be like going to a new school. I know I shall be possessed to
slide down the banisters. I wish I'd known Graham was going out, I'd
have gone, too."

"Barbara Lee's going to take Capt. Ricky's place in the gym," Isobel
further informed her sisters. "You know she was on the crew and the
basketball team and the hockey team at college."

"Let's try for the school team this year, Isobel." Gyp sat up very
straight. "Don't you remember how Capt. Ricky talked to us last year
about doing things to build up the school spirit?"

Isobel yawned. "It's too hot to think of doing anything right now! Miss
Grimball's always talking about school spirit as though we ought to do
everything for that. This is my last year--I'm going to just see that
Isobel Westley has a very good time and the school spirit can go hang!"

Gyp looked enviously at her valiant sister. Isobel was everything that
poor, overgrown, dark-skinned Gyp longed to be--her face had the pink
and white of an apple blossom, her fair hair curled around her temples
and in her neck, her deep-blue eyes were fringed by long black lashes;
she had, after much practice, acquired a willowy slouch that would have
made a movie artist's fortune; she was the acknowledged beauty of the
whole Lincoln school and had attended one or two dances under the
chaperoned escort of older boys.

"Here comes Graham," cried Tibby from the window. She leaned out to hail
him.

Graham Westley, who had, through the necessity of defending, for fifteen
years, an unenviable position between Isobel and Gyp, developed an
unusual amount of assertiveness, was what his uncle fondly called "quite
a boy." But the dignity of his first long trousers, at one glance, fell
before the boyish mischievousness of his frank face.

His sisters deluged h