* * * * *

"What's the matter now, Alene, that you pucker your brows over that
ponderous tome?"

It was after supper, and Uncle Fred, seated in an easy chair beside the
reading table in the library, was lazily puffing a pipe.

A stand near by held a large dictionary over whose pages Alene's head
was bent.

Glancing up with a puzzled expression, she said: "I don't quite
understand; this book says it means 'plain,' and I'm sure lots of
children are quite ugly long before they are that age, and I don't
think the girls are plain--Laura has lovely eyes and I never heard I
was. Am I ugly, Uncle?"

"Well, one wouldn't pick you out in a crowd when all the lights were
out, for a fright--"

"Oh, Uncle Fred, do be sober a minute!"

"Alene, I'm ashamed of you to hint that your guardian is ever anything
else!"

"I mean grave!"

"A 'most potent, reverend and grave' old fellow am I!"

"Why, sometimes, Uncle Fred, you act as if you weren't any more than
nine," said Alene, returning to the book with an air of tolerant
resignation that amused the young man. He crossed to her side.

"Tell me what you are hunting; perhaps I can help you."

Alene ignored his air of exaggerated solemnity.

"You see, Laura said one must be twelve years old to be legible--to the
Club, you know."

"Then if I'm not too old, I'm old enough to belong! But if I were you,
I'd quit the L's and try something else very like it, with an E
before," suggested Uncle Fred.

"Eligible, of course--how stupid of me!"

On the way upstairs that night Alene paused and gave way to a fit of
laughter.

"What's the fun now?" called Uncle Fred from his cosy position by the
table.

"It seems so funny to think that I," here came a series of mirthful
sounds, "to think that you would think that I was afraid of you."

Uncle Fred's chair was overturned by his energetic uprising in pursuit
of the little tease, who heeded the warning and was safely out of sight
on the landing, with one parting giggle as the door of her room was
shut with a resounding clap.

CHAPTER III

GUMDROPS

"Not a red gum drop was cast!" cried Laura as she jumped lightly from
the garden wall and joined Alene, who for some time had been pacing the
orchard impatiently with Prince jumping beside her.

Alene's look of pleased anticipation changed to dismay.

"I'm so sorry!"

"What for?"

"Why, Uncle Fred would have given me money to buy some, if I knew you
w