Line will make its first trip at 8:30 promptly to-morrow morning, as
advertised. All the same," he added jubilantly, "what a tremendous lark
it is, to be sure!"

And he gave way suddenly to an outburst of the sheer delight which he
really felt, and, leaping up, caught Felicia with one hand and Kirk with
the other. The three executed for a few moments a hilarious
ring-around-a-rosy about the table, till Felicia finally protested at
the congealing state of the supper, and they all dropped breathless to
their seats and fell to without more words.

After supper, Felicia played the Toad Song on the melodeon until it ran
in all their heads, and Kirk could be heard caroling it, upstairs, when
he was supposed to be settling himself to sleep.

It was not till Ken was bending over the lamp, preparatory to blowing it
out, that Phil noticed the bruise above his eye.

"How did you get that, lamb?" she said, touching Ken's forehead,
illuminated by the lamp's glow.

Ken blew out the flame swiftly, and faced his sister in a room lit only
by the faint, dusky reflection of moonlight without.

"Oh, I whacked up against something this afternoon," he said. "I'll put
some witch-hazel on it, if you like."

"I'm so _awfully_ glad about the Toad Song," whispered Felicia, slipping
her hand within his arm. "Good old brother!"

"Good old Maestro," said Ken; and they went arm in arm up the steep
stairs.

Ken lighted his sister's candle for her, and took his own into the room
he shared with Kirk. There was no fear of candle-light waking Kirk. He
was very sound asleep, with the covers thrown about, and Ken stood
looking at him for some time, with the candle held above his brother's
tranquil face. "I wonder where he'd have been sleeping to-night if I
hadn't come along just about when I did?" mused Ken. "The innocent
little youngster--he never supposed for a minute that the rapscallion
would do anything but take him home. How's he ever going to learn all
the ways of the wicked world? And what _ever_ possessed him to shoot off
the Toad Pome to the Maestro?"

Ken put the candle on the bureau and undid his necktie.

"The blessed little goose!" he added affectionately.

There is nothing like interesting work to make time pass incredibly
quickly. For the Sturgises were interested in all their labors, even the
"chores" of Applegate Farm. It goes without saying that Kirk's
music--which was the hardest sort of work--absorbed him completely; he
l