," said Evelyn, wilfully
misunderstanding.

For once Jessie could find no suitable retort. "You hate yourself, don't
you?" was all she could say.

"Not so you could notice it," said Evelyn, enjoying her victory. "It
seems to me that you were saying something when I----"

"When you so rudely interrupted," said Jessie, sweetly. "I'm not so sure
that I will tell you now. It was nothing of any importance."

"Oh, I knew that," said Evelyn quickly--it was certainly her lucky day.

"You win!" cried Jessie, good-naturedly, throwing up her hands in mock
despair.

Evelyn laughed merrily. "I'll have to look out after this," she said.
"There'll be back-fire, I'm afraid. But, seriously, Jessie, what were you
going to say?"

"Oh, only that this wonderful weather reminds me of this time last year
when we were just making our plans for camp."

"Yes and even then we hadn't begun to realize how great it was going to
be."

"I never knew what real fun was till we got way off there in the woods
with the river before us and the woods all about us. And the very best
thing of all was that we had only ourselves to depend on for
everything."

"And we seemed to get along pretty well, too, considering," said Evelyn.

"Of course we did," Jessie agreed, and then added with a laugh, "I think
we would be a valuable aid to suffrage. Tell everybody we managed to get
along without any man's help."

"Oh, but we didn't," Evelyn objected. "How about Mr. Wescott?"

"It seems to me we could have gotten along very well without any of his
help," retorted Jessie, vindictively.

"Perhaps we could, but--our guardian would tell a different story," said
Evelyn, meaningly.

As she spoke the door of Lucile's house opened violently and Lucile
herself came flying to meet them. She was dressed all in white and she
seemed to the girls the very spirit of spring.

"Oh, girls, I'm so glad you came early," she cried, joyfully. "I was
hoping you would, so we could talk things over by ourselves before the
others came." She threw an arm about each of the girls and ran them up on
the porch.

"We are the first, then?" said Jessie, perching on the railing.

"I told Jessie you would think we had come to breakfast," remarked
Evelyn, flinging her hat carelessly into a chair.

"That's the way to do it," said Lucile, sarcastically. "It would serve
you right if somebody should sit on it."

"Put it on, Lucy, and let's see how you look in it," Jessie suggested.