ure to keep it covered, or the squirrels will
carry them off. I hope you will not mind a squirrel coming in now and
then? they are so tame, they come hopping in to see if we have anything
for them; I often leave a bit of something."

"Oh! what fun!" said Peggy. "I love to tame squirrels. Ours at home will
come and eat from our hands. Will yours do that?"

"Not often; at least, not for me. The boys can bring them sometimes. I
think they like boys best. But I have a dear little field-mouse who
brings me her babies to look at now and then, just to show me how they
are growing. There, now, we go on chattering, when I know you ought to
rest awhile, and unpack and stow away. It takes quite a bit of planning
for two persons to fit into a tent. By and by, when you are all settled,
would you like to go out on the water? Hurrah! we'll come for you. Come
on, Toots!"

The two sisters walked slowly down the long slip that led to the
floating wharf, and sat down with their feet hanging over the edge.

"Well, Bell!" said Gertrude, eagerly.

"Well!" said Bell, slowly.

"What do you think of them? Isn't she lovely? and isn't Peggy a dear?"

"Yes," said Bell. "I think you have just hit it, Toots. Peggy is a dear;
just a hearty, jolly dear; but Margaret is lovely. Do you see a little
hint of Hilda? I can't tell where it is; not in the features, certainly,
nor in the coloring. I think it is in the brow and eyes; a kind of noble
look; I don't know how else to put it. You wouldn't say anything false
or base to this girl, any more than you would to Hilda; you wouldn't
dare. My lamb! I speak as if falseness and baseness were the usual note
of your conversation."

"I thought you were a trifle severe," said Gertrude, smiling. "Well,
anyhow, it is a joy to have them here, and dear Colonel Ferrers, too.
What shall we do this evening? Here come the boys for a council."

The twins, Gerald and Phil, came running down the wharf, followed by
Jack Ferrers. The latter, whom some of my readers may have known as an
awkward, "leggy" boy, was now a man. Very tall, towering three or four
inches above the six-foot Merryweathers, he still kept his boyish
slenderness and spring, though the awkward angles were somehow softened
away. He no longer stooped and shambled, but held his head up and his
shoulders back; and if he did still prance, as his uncle declared, like
the Mighty Ones of Scripture, it was not an ungraceful prancing.
Briefly, Jack Ferrers w