ill counting up her own misdemeanors at camp when the
Evans's automobile came for Gladys, and reluctantly all the girls
prepared to go home. It always seemed harder to break away from
Hinpoha's house than from any of the others'. In spite of the rich
furnishings it had a cozy, homey atmosphere of being used from one end
to the other, and no guest, however humble, ever felt awkward or out of
place there. Thus it usually happens that when people are entirely at
ease in their own surroundings, they soon make others feel the same way
too.

CHAPTER II.

A SUDDEN MISFORTUNE.

As the day drew near for the return of her mother and father Hinpoha
went all over the house from garret to cellar seeing that everything was
put to rights. She and the other Winnebagos took a trip into the country
for bittersweet to decorate the fireplace in the library and in her
father's study upstairs. With pardonable pride she arranged a little
exhibition of the Craft work she had done in camp and the sketches she
had made of the lake and hills. On the table in her mother's room she
placed a work basket she had made of reed and lined with silk.

"Gracious sakes, child," said her aunt, from her rocking chair by the
front window of the living-room, "what a fuss you are going to! One
would think it was your Aunt Phoebe who was coming instead of your
mother and father. They'll be just as glad to see you if the house isn't
as neat as a pin from top to bottom." And Aunt Grace resumed her rocking
and her novel, as unconcerned about the imminent return of the travelers
as if it were nothing more than the daily visit of the milkman. Nothing
short of an earthquake would ever shake Aunt Grace out of her settled
complacency.

Hinpoha went happily on, seeing that every tack and screw was in place,
and arranging the books in the cases to correspond to her father's
catalog, for they had become sadly mixed during his absence. She even
took out a volume of his favorite essays and pored over them diligently
so that she might discuss them with him and show that she had used some
of her time to good advantage. She straightened out her bureau drawers
and mended all her clothes and stockings. When everything was in order
she viewed the result with a happy feeling at the pleasure it would give
her mother when she saw it. Hinpoha's most prominent trait in times past
had not been neatness.

Nyoda, who had been called in to make a final inspection before Hinpo