scarlet-fringed hammock.

"That's all very well for you, Edith, you don't have the
responsibility of her. Her father wants her to read a little history
every day, and this is the best time--it's too hot for anything
else."

"Rather hot for history, dear?"

"It's not too hot for the Moonstone, I notice! She's been at that
since breakfast, steadily. Not a word for any one."

"'Moonstone' sounds cool, anyhow," drawled the contralto
appeasingly.

"Oh, Edith! You're as bad as the child herself!"

"She's fourteen, dear."

"Fourteen! What is that?"

"Anything but a child, when it's you, Sis. You talk to her as if she
were ten."

"You'd think she was, if you saw her riding that donkey--a great
girl like her!"

"There it is, dear! One moment she's a baby, the next she's a great
girl! It's hard on her, Sis."

"But, Edith--that donkey!"

"Poor Rose-Marie! I rode him myself--bareback and standing up!--when
I was fifteen--at a circus. Do you remember?"

The voice chuckled unwillingly. "You always were a tomboy, Deedee!
Do you remember Joe's bull fight?"

[Illustration: Caroline was not a hundred yards away, sheltering
under a heavy arbor vitae, flat on her stomach.]

"And the lemonade stand!" Contralto cried, with a rich swoop of
laughter. Their voices took up a happy canon of gold memories; there
were no more cries for Caroline.

She was not a hundred yards away from the sister aunts, sheltering
under a heavy arbor vitae, flat on her stomach, her nose glued to the
reprehensible Moonstone: that she had heard the calls and resented
them the scowl between her eyebrows exhibited. Behind her, patiently
at graze, a small, mouse-colored donkey stood, shifting a pair of
quaint panniers from side to side and wagging his scarlet ear
tassels thoughtfully.

The chapter ended, Caroline rose, peered across to the piazza,
nodded to herself at the flow of voices and shrugged her shoulders.

"Good old Aunt Deedee!" she muttered, "she choked her off! Now, for
heaven's sake, don't bray, Rose-Marie, and perhaps we can get away.
I wouldn't dare get over to the house for a luncheon; we'll have to
get along with sweet-boughs."

She slipped the book into one pannier, a cushion into the other
and threw a worn steamer rug over the little beast's back;
Caroline was a luxurious lounger and rarely traveled without
her sumpter mule and his impedimenta. She led him with practiced
quiet away from the house and paused under the gnarled