course not. To-morrow though, sure. Carl will be gone and the
coast clear, and meanwhile we'll drill."

For the remainder of the day the girls were absorbed in something which
took them to their room and kept them there, and they only appeared
when dinner was announced, and the family already seated at the table.

"Well, Miss Nan," Carl Andrews exclaimed, "I wish you were a boy, and
I'd take you up into the mountains with me and teach you how to handle
a gun."

"What fun!" cried Nan.

"Yes, it would be great sport, and I warrant you'd like camp-life, too.
It's just the sort of thing that you'd enjoy. Only I'm afraid it would
agree with you so well that you would grow an inch a week, and
considering you are a girl you'd better not get any taller."

"O dear! Don't say that," groaned Nan, "for I probably shall grow lots
more as it is. You see I'm not quite sixteen yet. Do people ever get
their growth before they are sixteen, Mrs. Andrews?"

"Oh, sometimes," replied the lady kindly. "I scarcely think you will
grow any more, my dear. But I wouldn't worry about it in any case if I
were you."

"But I don't want to tower over everybody," wailed the girl. "Just
think, I'm head and shoulders above Miss Blake now!"

"But Miss Blake is a 'pocket Venus!' Just as high as one's heart,"
said Carl Andrews. "I took her home the other night and she barely
reached to my shoulder."

"Then you and Nan must be about the same height!" said Helen.

Nan made a grimace.

"Good rye grows high!" quoted Miss Webster, good-naturedly. And then
the elder Mr. Andrews, who was a little deaf, began to talk about the
crops, probably thinking they had been discussing grain, since he heard
the word "rye."

Early the next morning Carl Andrews started off, and the family waved
him a vigorous good-bye from the veranda steps, and after he had gone
the different members of the household went about their own particular
business, and did not meet again until luncheon-time.

It proved an unusually warm day, and when evening came the young people
were glad to sit quietly on the veranda in the dark and enjoy the
heartening breeze that swept up from the sea. Mr. and Mrs. Andrews had
gone, as was their custom, out driving immediately after dinner, and so
the four girls were left to themselves. They were just laughing over
Ruth's description of one of Nan's exploits when the maid appeared
bearing a letter on a salver.

"For Miss Cutler,"