eley considered the raising of
the rustic stairway an entire success, although there was much light talk
and laughter as they ate the dainty supper the girls had prepared for
them in the Cloud Cote, as Eveley had already christened her home above
the earth. But the men, with the exception of Nolan, were doomed to
disappointment.

When Dick Fairwether asked her to go to a movie with him in the evening,
and when Jimmy Weaver invited her to go for a night drive with him along
the beach, and when Captain Hardin suggested that she accompany him to
the Columbine dance at the San Diego, and when Lieutenant Ames wanted to
make a foursome with Kitty and Arnold to go boating, she said most
regretfully to each,--"Isn't it a shame? But my sister is having some
kind of a silly club there to-night, and I promised to go."

But to Nolan, very secretly she whispered: "Now you trot along to the
office and work and when I am ready to come home I will phone you to come
and get me. And we will initiate the Cloud Cote all by ourselves."

So the little party broke up almost immediately after supper, with deep
avowals of gratitude on the part of Eveley, and equally deep assurances
of pleasure and good will on the part of the others. After they had gone,
as Eveley inspected her stairway alone, she was comforted by the thought
that she could fairly smother it with vines and all sorts of creeping and
climbing things, and the casual comer would not notice how funny and
wabbly it was. But as she went gingerly down, clinging desperately to the
rail on both sides, she determined to take out an accident policy
immediately, with a special clause governing rustic stairways.

CHAPTER III

EVERYBODY'S DUTY

Due to the old-fashioned, rambling style of the house, the rustic
stairway did not really detract from its beauty. And as there were
already clambering vines and roses in profusion, an extra arbor more or
less, could, as Eveley claimed, pass without serious comment. Although
the house was old, it was still exquisitely beautiful, with its cream
white pillars and columns showing behind the mass of green. And the lawn,
which was no lawn but only a natural park running riot with foliage
coaxed into endless lovers' nooks and corners, was a fitting and
marvelously beautiful setting for it.

The gardens were in the shape of a triangle, with conventional paved
streets on the north and west, but on the east and south they drifted
away into the s