he
sight of gods and men, eh, boys?" said Mr. Elton good-humoredly, but
rising as if to cut short the conversation.

"Can't we take a walk before Ellery and I go back to town?" asked Dick.

"Go, you kid things. I haven't seen the evening paper yet, and that's
more to my old brain than moonlight strolls." Mr. Elton dismissed them.

The three young people set out upon a path that twisted by the lake
shore, bordered on its inner side by trees that had become in the
darkness mere shapeless masses out of which an occasional mysterious
thread of light brought into sight some uncanny shape. The purple of the
evening zenith had sunk into deeper and deeper blue, pricked here and
there with stars. Bats were wheeling in mysterious circles among the
tree-tops, and the air was full of sounds that seem to come only at
twilight.

"Isn't it strange that though every one of those trees is an old friend,
I should be frightened at the very idea of being alone among them at
night? And yet there's nothing in the dark that isn't in the day," said
Madeline.

"Oh, yes, there is," Dick rejoined. "There's more being afraid in the
dark."

She laughed and they went on in silence.

"Who's been building a new house, just on the very spot I always meant
to own some day--right here next to your father?" Dick demanded,
stopping abruptly.

"Oh, you haven't seen that, have you?" said Madeline. "Let's sit down on
this log and look at the stars. That's Mr. Lenox's new house; and I'm so
sorry for them!"

"Why grieve for the prosperous? Reserve your tears for the suffering."

"Why, you know, in town, they live with Mr. Windsor, who is Mrs. Lenox's
father, and he's a multimillionaire; and it's a great establishment; and
the world is necessarily very much with them. So when Mr. Lenox proposed
that they should build a country house of their own and spend their
summers here, I think he wanted to get out to some primitive simplicity,
where the children could go barefoot if they wanted to. But as soon as
it was suggested, Mr. Windsor presented his daughter with a big tract,
and insisted on building this great palace, and they have to keep so
many servants that Mr. Lenox says it is a regular Swedish
boarding-house. And there are so many guest-rooms that it would be a
shame not to have them occupied; and extra people run out in their
motors every day; and the children have to be kept immaculate all the
time. So they've brought the world out with them. M