Miss Hampton chattin' so busy
together, that she'd have hung up the net and waited until she struck
better huntin' grounds. But not Ella May. Here was a perfectly good man;
and as long as nobody had handcuffs on him, or hadn't guarded him with
barbed wire, she was ready to take a chance.

Just how she managed it I couldn't say, even if it was done right under
my eyes; but when we starts in for dinner she's clingin' sort of playful
to one side of Mr. Robert, chatterin' a steady stream, while Miss
Hampton is left to drift along on the other, almost as if she was an
"also-ran."

Mr. Robert wa'n't havin' such a swell time that meal, either. About once
in three or four minutes he'd get a chance to say a few words to Miss
Hampton, but most of the time he was busy listenin' to Ella May. So was
the rest of us, in fact. Not that she was sayin' anything important or
specially interestin'. Mainly it's snappy personal anecdotes--about Ella
May, or her brother Glenn, or Uncle Wash Lee, the Buell fam'ly butler.
Or else she's teasin' Mr. Robert about not rememberin' her better,
darin' him to look her square in the eyes, and such little tricks.

Say, she was some whirlwind performer, take it from me. I discovers that
everybody was "Honey" to her, even Ferdie. And you should have seen him
tint up and glance panicky at Marjorie the first time she put it over on
him.

As for Miss Hampton, she appears to be enjoyin' the whole thing. She
watches Miss Buell sparkle and roll her eyes, and only smiles sort of
amused. For what Ella May is unlimberin' is an attack in force, as a war
correspondent would put it--an assault with cavalry, heavy guns, and
infantry. And, for all his society experience, Mr. Robert don't seem to
know how to meet it. He acts sort of dazed and helpless, now and then
glancin' appealin' across to Sister Marjorie, or around at Miss Hampton.

All that evenin' the attack goes on, Ella May workin' the spell
overtime, gettin' Mr. Robert to let her read his palm, pinnin' flowers
in his buttonhole, and keepin' him cornered; while the rest of us sits
around like cheap deadheads that had been let in on passes.

And next mornin', when Mr. Robert makes a desperate stab to duck right
after breakfast, only to be captured again and led into the garden,
Marjorie finally gets her mad up.

"Really," says she, "this is too absurd! Of course, she always was an
outrageous flirt. You should have seen her at boarding school--with the
mu