sh you wouldn't talk like that."

"But it's a fact."

"You mean," she answered gently, "that you've said it so often that at
last you're beginning to believe it's true."

A few mornings later, when the boys came down to breakfast, they were
surprised, on looking out of the window, to see no less a personage
than Joe Crouch weeding the garden path.

"I found he was out of work, and his parents wretchedly poor," said
Queen Mab; "so I said he might come and help Jakes by doing a few odd
jobs. You know the old maxim," she added, smiling--"the beet way to
subdue an enemy is to turn him into a friend."

The two boys took considerable interest in Crouch, regarding him as
their own particular protege. Joe, for his part, seemed to remember
their early morning encounter with gratitude, as having been the means
of landing him in his present situation. He had apparently a great
amount of respect for Jack, and seeing the latter cutting sticks with a
blunt knife, asked leave to take it home with him, and brought it back
next day with the blades shining like silver, and as sharp as razors.

One afternoon, when the boys were lying reading in the tent, Barbara
suddenly appeared in the open doorway, and stamping her foot, cried,
"_Bother_!"

"What's up with you, Bar?"

"Why, that wretched Raymond Fosberton is in the house talking to Aunt
Mab. He's walked over from Grenford; and he is going to stay the
night."

Valentine groaned, and Jack administered a kick to an unoffending
camp-stool.

"What does he want to come here for, I wonder?" continued Barbara.
"Silly monkey! you should just see him in his white waistcoat and shiny
boots--faugh!" And she choked with wrath.

Raymond's presence certainly did not contribute very much to the
happiness of the party. He monopolized the conversation at tea-time,
was very high and mighty in his manner, and patronized everybody in
turn. He lost his temper playing croquet, and broke one of the
mallets; and later on in the evening he cheated at "word-making," and
because he failed to win, pronounced it a "stupid game, only fit for
kids."

In Barbara, however, he found his match. She cared not two straws for
all the Fosbertons alive or dead; and when the visitor, who had been
teasing her for some time, went so far as to pull her hair, she
promptly dealt him a vigorous box on the ear, a proceeding which so
delighted the warlike Jack that he chuckled till bed-time.

Every one felt re