ing her head in the water."

"If she lost her head she wouldn't swim very far," put in Ed with gentle
sarcasm.

"Put him out!" ordered Walter. "But say, when are we going to get down to
the horrible details, and make some definite plans? This sort of a tea
party suits me all right--don't mistake me," he hastened to add, with a
glance at Cora, "but if we are going, let's--go!"

"That's what I say," came from Belle. "You won't find me holding back,"
and she crossed the room to look out of the parlor window across the
Kimball lawn.

"My! That's a stunning dress!" exclaimed Jack. "Fish-line color, isn't it?"

"He's trying to make amends. Don't you believe him," echoed Walter.

"Fish-line color!" mocked Cora. "Oh, Jack, you are hopeless! That's the
newest shade of pearl."

"Well, I almost hit it," defended Jack. "Pearls are related to fishes,
and fish lines are----"

"Oh, get a map!" groaned Ed. "Do you always have to make diagrams of your
jokes that way, old man?"

"Let's go outside," proposed Cora. "I'm sure it's getting stuffy in
here----"

"Well, I like that!" cried Belle. "After she asked us to come, she calls
us stuffy! Cora Kimball!"

"Oh, I didn't mean it that way at all," protested the young hostess.
"But it is close and sultry. I shouldn't wonder but what we'd have a
thunder-shower."

"Don't say that!" pleaded Jack, in what Walter termed his theatrical
voice. "A shower means water, and Belle and water----"

"Stop it!" commanded the pestered one. "Do come out," and she linked her
arm in that of Cora. "Maybe we can talk sense if we get in the open."

The young people drifted from the room, out on the broad porch and thence
down under the cedars that lined the path. It was late afternoon, and
though the sky was clouding over, there shot through the masses now and
then a shaft of sun that fell on the walk between the tree branches,
bringing into relief the figures that "crunched" their way along the
gravel, talking rapidly the while.

"Looks like a rare old reunion," spoke Jack. "I guess we'll do something
worth while after all."

"Don't distress yourself too much, old man," warned Ed. "You might get a
sun-stroke, you know."

"That's the time you beat him to it," chuckled Walter. "Do they do this
sort of thing out your way?" and he addressed pretty Eline.

She blushed a charming pink under her coat of tan--a real biscuit brown,
it had been voted by her admirers. She reminded them of a little red