ttle nearer, couldn't we? As long as we're here?"

Bessie thought it over for a moment, and, as a matter of fact, really
could see no harm in spending ten minutes or so in walking over toward
the gypsy camp. She herself had seen a few gypsies near Hedgeville in
her time, but in that part of the country those strange wanderers were
not popular.

"All right," she said. "But if I do that will you promise to start for
home as soon as we've had a look at them, and never to play such a trick
on me again?"

"I certainly will. Bessie, you're a darling. And I'll tell you something
else; too; you were so nice about the way I changed those signs that I'm
really sorry I did it. And I just thought it would be a good joke.
Usually I'm glad when people get angry at my jokes, it shows they were
good ones."

Bessie smiled wisely to herself. Gradually she was learning that the way
to rob Dolly's jokes and teasing tricks of their sting, and the best
way, at the same time, to cure Dolly herself of her fondness for them,
was never to let the joker know that they had had the effect she
planned.

Dolly, considerably relieved, as a matter of fact, when she found that
Bessie was really not angry at her for the trick she had played with the
sign post, chatted volubly as they turned to walk over toward the gypsy
camp.

"I don't see why they call this a pond and the one we're on a lake,"
she said. "This is ever so much bigger than Long Lake. Why, it must; be
four or five miles long, don't you think, Bessie?"

"Yes. I guess they call it a pond because it looks just like a big,
overgrown ice pond. See, it's round. I think Long Lake is ever so much
prettier, don't you, even though it's smaller?"

"I certainly do. This place isn't like the woods at all, it's more like,
regular country, that you can find by just taking a trolley car and
riding a few miles out from the city."

"It used to be just as it is now around Long Lake, I suppose," said
Bessie. "But they've cut the trees down, and made room for tennis courts
and all sorts of things like that, and then, I suppose, they needed wood
to build the hotel, too. It's quite a big place, isn't it, Dolly?"

"Yes, and I've heard of it before, too," Dolly. "A friend of mine stayed
up here for a month two or three years ago. She says they advertise
that it's wild and just like living right in the woods, but it isn't at
all. I guess it's for people who like to think they're roughing it when
they're