got all kinds of combinations."

"Yes, but we didn't get yours," chuckled Tilly, coming easily forward,
with outstretched hand.

"Indeed we didn't," echoed Elsie, admiringly.

"Why, of course we couldn't," stammered Cordelia, still red of face. "We
never, never _could_ think of anything so pretty as you really are!"

Quentina laughed now, and raised hurried hands to hide the pretty red
that had flown to her cheeks.

"Oh, you funny, funny Happy Hexagons!" she cried, in her sweet, Southern
drawl.

Naturally there could be nothing stiff about the introductions, after
that, and they were dispatched in short order, even to Mr. Jones's
pulling the boys into line, and announcing:

"This is Paul, with the solemn face. And this grinning little chap is
Edward--Ned, for short; and these are the twins, Bob and Rob."

"Are they both 'Robert'?" questioned Tilly, interestedly.

Mr. Jones smiled.

"Oh, no. Bob is Bolton, and Rob is Robert. The 'Rob and Bob' is
Quentina's idea--she likes the sound of it."

"I told you!--she _is_ a rhyming dictionary," whispered Tilly, in an
aside that nearly convulsed the two girls that heard her.

Inside the house they all met "mother."

Mother, in spite of her lame foot, was a very forceful personality. She
was bright and cheery, too, and she made the girls feel welcome and at
home immediately.

"It's so good of you to come!" she exclaimed. "Poor Quentina has been
shut up with me for weeks. But I'm better, now--lots better; and I shall
soon be about again."

"I think it was very good of you to let us come," returned Genevieve,
politely, "specially when you aren't well yourself. But we'll try not to
make you any more trouble than we can't help."

"Trouble, dear child! I reckon we don't call _you_ trouble," declared
the minister's wife, fervently, "after all your kindness to my daughter,
Alice." Genevieve raised a protesting hand, but Mrs. Jones went on
smilingly. "And then that letter to Quentina--she's never ceased to talk
and dream of the girls who sent it to her."

"Oh, I did like it so much--indeed I did," chimed in Quentina. "Why,
Genevieve, I made a poem on it--a lovely poem just like Tennyson's
'Margaret,' you know; only I put in 'Hexagons,' and changed the words to
fit, of course."

Tilly nudged Elsie violently, and Elsie choked a spasmodic giggle into a
cough; but Quentina unhesitatingly went on.

"It began:

"'O sweet pale Hexagons,
O rare