ia.

"Well, that's preferable to looking like a pest-house patient, as he
did yesterday."

His first-aid costume didn't find favor with the landlady, as it would
seem indicative to the newly arrived of the features of the place.
However, before another stage-coming was due, Di had rent his garment
sufficiently to make it useless is a "skeeter skirt."

During the morning I enjoyed my solitary swim with the snakes.
Diogenes played football with the croquet balls and bruised one of his
toes, besides hitting the landlady's child in the eye. Silvia went for
a walk which had been pictured in the advertisements. She speedily
returned, her ardor dampened.

"There are so many sticks and stones and rocks," she said in a
discouraged tone, "that there was no pleasure in walking. I nearly
sprained my ankle."

"Well, the real sport we haven't tried yet," I said. "We'll get a boat
and take Diogenes and go for a row on the lake."

This proposition met with instant favor. I put Silvia and Diogenes in
the stern of the boat and pulled for the opposite shore. My endeavors
to gain this point were balked by Silvia's remarkable conceptions of
the art of steering craft. She was so serenely satisfied, however,
with the way she performed her duties and the aid she thought she was
giving me, that I forbore to criticize.

In order to achieve a few strokes in the right direction, I asked her
to get me a cigar from an inside pocket of my coat, which was on the
seat in front of her. Then came the blight to our bliss. She looked in
the wrong pocket and instead of producing a cigar, she extracted two
letters with seals unbroken.

[Illustration: "Lucien Wade!" she gasped. "Here are our letters to Beth
and Rob."]

"Lucien Wade!" she gasped. "Here are our letters to Beth and Rob.
Well, it is my fault. I should have known better than to give them to
you."

"The plot thickens," I replied thoughtfully.

"This is Monday. They must both be at the house now. What will they
think!"

"They will think we didn't receive their letters."

"Isn't it unfortunate--" she began.

"No," I replied. "I am not sure but what it is a good thing. It will
give Rob a jolt to see that girls can be as nice as Beth is, and as
for her, she is quite able to take care of the situation where a man
is concerned."

"But we must have Beth here. Maybe you'd better telegraph her."

"Huldah understands conditions. She will send Beth on here."

The next morning we took D