as Tavia came up.

"I should think so," they heard Nat answer, "But Dorothy was ready to--"

"Hush!" whispered Viola, but the warning was just a moment too late,
for Tavia heard it. Then Viola said something that Tavia did not hear.

Nat was very pleasant to Nettie. It was evident the introduction had
broken in on something interesting to Viola, if not to Nat, but he gave
no sign of the interference being annoying, although the girl was not
so tactful.

"Nettie is the committee on boys," declared Tavia, "so I thought it
high time she had a chance to censure you--I mean to look over your
credentials."

"Well, if you and the others would join me in a swallow of that
lemonade I see under yonder tree, Miss Nettie,--No, not you Tavia, nor
Miss Green? Then we will have to drink alone, for I am deadly
thirsty," and at this he walked away with Nettie, leaving Viola on the
bench with Tavia.

"Oh, there's Tom looking for me," exclaimed Viola, jumping up
instantly, "won't you let me introduce you, Tavia?" (she actually said
Tavia!) "He's a stranger and some out of place."

"Yes," said Tavia vaguely, probably referring to the "out of place"
clause, and not exactly giving assent to the introduction.

Then came Viola's turn--she left Tavia with Tom and as promptly made
her own escape!

"Of all the--clams," Tavia was saying to herself, rather rudely, it
must be confessed.

But Tom evidently liked Tavia, at any rate he talked to her and showed
a remarkable aptness in keeping up the tete-a-tete, "against all
comers," said Nat to himself, noticing the monopoly.

"That's the time Miss Tavia was beaten at her own game," was Viola's
secret comment. "How glad I am to get rid of that bore. I heartily
wish I--that he had not been asked."

"What do you think of that?" inquired Alice of Dorothy, observing the
girl's change of partners. "Look at Nat with Viola and Tavia with Tom!"

"I would like to hear what Tavia has to say," and Dorothy smiled at the
idea of Tavia's possible conversation. "I'm just dying to tell her
that Viola's name did not come from the vegetable kingdom."

"We had really better break up these little confabs," said Alice,
feeling her responsibility as hostess, "or we may have reason to doubt
the advisability of giving a lawn party with boys."

"The simplest games will be the most enjoyable, I think," suggested
Dorothy. "I would begin with 'drop the handkerchief.'"

"Fine idea," replied Alice. "Bu