becoming tennis suit, was
standing on the steps taking leave of some of the players. With
hospitable insistence she was urging them to stay to lunch, and there
was something in the sweet graciousness of the young hostess that made
Mary uncomfortable. She felt that she had been weighed in the balance
and found wanting. The Princess never would have stooped to treat a
guest as she had treated Girlie. Her standard of hospitality was too
high to allow such a breach of hospitality.

Mary had carried her point, but she felt that if Lloyd knew how she had
played stork, she would consider her ill-bred. The thought worried her
for days.

CHAPTER VII.

THE COMING OF THE BRIDE

Early in the June morning Mary awoke, feeling as if it were Christmas or
Fourth of July or some great gala occasion. She lay there a moment,
trying to think what pleasant thing was about to happen. Then she
remembered that it was the day on which the bride was to arrive. Not
only that,--before the sun went down, the best man would be at The
Locusts also.

She raised herself on her elbow to look at Joyce, in the white bed
across from hers. She was sound asleep, so Mary snuggled down on her
pillow again, and lay quite still. If Joyce had been awake, Mary would
have begun a long conversation about Phil Tremont. Instead, she began
recalling to herself the last time she had seen him. It was three years
ago, down by the beehives, and she had had no idea he was going away
until he came to the Wigwam to bid them all good-by. And Joyce and Lloyd
were away, so he had left a message for them with her. She thought it
queer then, and she had wondered many times since why his farewell to
the girls should have been a message about the old gambling god, Alaka.
She remembered every word of it, even the tones of his voice as he said:
"Try to remember just these words, please, Mary. Tell them that '_Alaka
has lost his precious turquoises, but he will win them back again some
day_.' Can you remember to say just that?"

He must have thought she wasn't much more than a baby to repeat it so
carefully to her several times, as if he were teaching her a lesson.
Well, to be sure, she was only eleven then, and she had almost cried
when she begged him not to go away, and insisted on knowing when he was
coming back. He had looked away toward old Camelback Mountain with a
strange, sorry look on his face as he answered:

"Not till I've learned your lesson--to be 'inflexi