ers had also mourned the distance that separated her from
them. But even the absence of these four paled almost into
insignificance beside the disappointing knowledge that the fifth missing
member, jovial Emma Dean, had not yet appeared.

"She will be here," announced Elfreda positively. "I know she will.
Don't worry about it. She will no doubt come to the surface when you
least expect it. She wouldn't miss the reunion for a good deal."

"But she'll miss having dinner on the lawn this evening and seeing that
wonderful gypsy fortune teller you have hunted up for the occasion," was
Julia Emerson's regretful cry. "Where did you find her, Elfreda? Can she
really tell fortunes?"

"She can," Elfreda asserted with solemn positiveness. "Wait and see.
Where I found her is a secret for to-night. Perhaps if you are good,
I'll tell you all about her to-morrow."

"But to-morrow never comes," reminded Patience Eliot. "You'd better tell
us now."

"Can't do it." Elfreda beamed mysteriously on the Emerson twins. "Curb
your curiosity, twins. Wait patiently and the future shall unfold itself
to you as an open book. I wouldn't make a bad fortune teller myself,"
she added humorously. "That's the way they usually talk."

"I am so disappointed at not seeing Emma here, too," sighed Grace
Harlowe. "It seems ages since we said good-bye to each other at Overton.
You don't suppose anything has happened to her, do you, Elfreda?"

"Of course not. Take my word for it, she'll be here before we are a day
older. There, that finishes the decorations." Elfreda triumphantly
fastened into place the last of a quantity of Chinese lanterns that she
and her friends had been stringing about the grounds, viewing the work
with a sigh of satisfaction. "These won't give much light, but they'll
look pretty. The electric light will have to do the real illuminating
act. The table looks sweet, doesn't it?"

Several voices sent up laudatory affirmations. Though the Sempers had
arrived only that morning they had entered heart and soul soul into
Elfreda's plan for a dinner on the lawn that evening, with the added
treat of communing with a real fortune-teller afterward. In order to
give the mysterious sooth-sayer a proper setting, a veritable grotto had
been arranged for her inside a small summer house at one end of the
lawn, on which the light would shine only faintly, thereby according her
the eerie environment so necessary to one whose business it is to
foretell