aux at their lawn fete that
night? If so, would the house-party at The Locusts proceed immediately
to The Beeches to spend the morning in the rehearsing of tableaux, the
selection of costumes, the manufacture of paper roses, and the pleasure
of each other's honorable company in the partaking of a picnic-lunch
under the trees?

There was an enthusiastic acceptance from all except Eugenia, who, tired
from her long journey and with many important things to attend to,
begged to be left behind for a quiet day with her cousin Elizabeth.
Mary, tormented by a fear that maybe she was not included in the
invitation, since she was a child, and all the guests at The Beeches
were grown, could scarcely finish her breakfast in her excitement. But
long before the girls were ready to start, her fears were set at rest by
the arrival of Elise Walton in her pony-cart. She wanted Mary to drive
to one of the neighbors with her, to borrow a bonnet and shawl over
fifty years old, which were to figure in one of the tableaux.

Elise had not been attracted by Mary's appearance the day she met her in
the restaurant and was not sure that she would care for her. It was only
her hospitable desire to be nice to a guest in the Valley that made her
comply so willingly to her mother's request to show her some especial
attention. Mary, spoiled by the companionship of the older girls for the
society of those her own age, was afraid that Elise would be a
repetition of Girlie Dinsmore; but before they had gone half a mile
together they were finding each other so vastly entertaining that by the
time they reached The Beeches they felt like old friends.

It was Mary's first sight of the place, except the glimpse she had
caught through the trees the morning they passed on their way to
Rollington. As the pony-cart rattled up the wide carriage drive which
swept around in front of the house, she felt as if she were riding
straight into a beautiful old Southern story of ante-bellum days. Back
into the times when people had leisure to make hospitality their chief
business in life, and could afford for every day to be a holiday. When
there were always guests under the spreading rooftree of the great
house, and laughter and plenty in the servants' quarters. The sound of a
banjo and a negro melody somewhere in the background heightened the
effect of that illusion.

The wide front porch seemed full of people. Allison and Kitty looked up
with a word of greeting as the