t criticizing
yours," retorted Neil, surveying with favour a vine-wreathed platter of
broiled chicken, and eyeing hungrily a large salad-bowl filled with a
compound which he knew by experience to be one of Joanna's choicest. "I
say, to be consistent--"

But he found himself delivering his views to Mrs. Burnside alone, for the
rest had trooped in to make themselves presentable.

"You people certainly do manage to get a lot of fun out of your
farming," observed Dorothy Chase, as she watched Sally splashing her
round arms in a vain effort to remove the tan. "We live just as far out
from town as you do, but nothing could be more different than our way of
living from yours."

"Well, if we depended on tennis, golf, and bridge for our fun we'd be
just like you. As we like hayfields, strawberry-patches, and pine groves
better--with tobogganing in winter--we continue to be different."

"I should say golf and tennis were just as healthy exercise as haying and
picking strawberries."

"No doubt they are--but the company isn't so select," declared Sally
audaciously, towelling her wet face so briskly that it emerged looking
more than ever like the roses to which Neil had that morning compared it.

"You impertinent girl! What do you mean by that?"

"I mean that Tom Westlake isn't to be spoken of in the same breath with
Donald Ferry. Billy North is an idiot compared with Jarvis Burnside.
There aren't two girls among all your society friends who can equal Janet
and Constance, and--"

"And Sally Lane, as a hostess, is infinitely superior to Dorothy Chase!"

"Don't put words into my mouth." Sally came close and laid a warm pink
palm on either of Dorothy's cheeks. "Sally Lane is such a bad hostess
she says insulting things to her guests. Don't mind her. She's so excited
and happy to-day over her strawberry acres she's not responsible for what
she says. Come, let's hurry down."

"You people look more like a set of golfers at a summer hotel than you do
like farmers," began Neil Chase, still harping on the theme which seemed
to cause him so much unrest, as the party sat down.

Max opened his mouth for a retort. But, with one look at Donald Ferry,
who sat across the table, he closed it again. He met an amused glance of
comprehension. Then Ferry also opened his lips to speak. But before the
words found breath Mr. Timothy Rudd rose to the occasion.

"Mr. Chase," said he, "since a rose by any other name would smell as
sweet, let me