rts boys, Ed, was quite taken with her and determined to
see more of her before the summer was over. When they took their
departure these two boys asked permission to call on her and
Sahwah. "Wouldn't you like to bring some more of the boys, and
come and see all of us?" said Gladys.

"I'll bring the boys over sometime," promised the Counsellor.

The very next morning a twelve-year-old boy wearing the uniform
of the Mountain Lake Camp came in a launch and presented a note
to Nyoda. It read:

"Mountain Lake Camp sends greetings to Camp Winnebago and begs
permission to send a delegation to call and pay its respects."

Nyoda wrote in answer:

"Camp Winnebago heartily returns Mountain Lake Camp's greetings
and begs to say that it will be at home this very sundown."

What a flutter of excitement there was after the envoy had gone!
Gladys and Sahwah were overwhelmed with questions about the boys
and conjectures as to how many and which ones were coming. Tents
were cleaned and put in such order as they had never known
before; the shack was decorated with grasses and wild flowers;
canoe cushions were brushed; songs were practised and lemons
squeezed, that everything might be in readiness for the visitors!
Skirts which had not been worn since the beginning of summer were
brought out of trunks and the wrinkles pressed out. Then there
rose such a chorus of exclamations that the birds stopped their
own chattering to listen.

"Oh, I can't get my skirt shut!" "Why, I can't either! Not by
two inches!" "Oh, fudge! There goes the button!" From every
side came the same wail. Not a girl there who had not gained from
five to fifteen pounds, and the tight skirts, made to fit in
their slenderer days, were a sorry sight. "What _will_ we do,
Nyoda?" they groaned to their Guardian, who was in the same
plight herself.

"The only thing we can do," said Nyoda, "inasmuch as we haven't
time to make them over, is for all of us to wear our white linen
skirts with our middies outside, so it won't show how much they
gap. And let this be a solemn warning to every girl to look over
her clothes before it is time to go home!"

Promptly at sundown four canoes appeared around the cliff, each
manned by two paddlers, and drew up alongside the Winnebago dock,
where the girls stood to welcome them. The Counsellor who had
shown Sahwah and Gladys around the boys' camp was there, and the
Roberts brothers and five more of the senior campers. E