pped
and--"

"Oh, hush!" begged Lucile, with her finger on her lips. "There he is now;
listen, please!"

And Jessie listened while the little songster poured out his joy in
liquid cadences that rose and fell and sparkled out upon the morning air
like dancing sunbeams turned to music--so light, so rippling, so joyously
alive, that the girls' hearts thrilled in answer.

"Oh, the darling!" cried Jessie, springing out of bed and joining Lucile
at the window. "I wonder what he is; we never heard anything like that in
Burleigh. Now he's stopped again----"

"He won't sing when you talk, of course," said Evelyn, who had been
quietly watching them.

"Of course not," said Jessie, calmly. "He knows there is no use in trying
to compete with the music of my voice."

"Time to get up," exclaimed Evelyn, in a loud voice, and began a show of
dressing in a great hurry, while Lucile gave a little despairing laugh.

"I don't know what you two would do if you didn't have me to act the part
of peacemaker all the time. I'm afraid they would have one or the other
of you up for murder before the end of the week."

"Well, we couldn't get along without you, anyway," said Jessie,
affectionately. "What's the use of thinking of such awful calamities
ahead of time?"

"All right; we won't, if you say so," said Lucile, and, snatching a
pillow from the bed, she hurled it at the unsuspecting and suddenly
pensive Evelyn. The aim was good and Evelyn tumbled over on the bed,
while a couple of feet waved frantically in the air.

"Oh," she cried, half smothered by the pillow, "I'll get even for this,
Lucile Payton! You just wait!" And, being a young person of her word,
Lucile just ducked in time to escape an answering shot.

Then would have ensued an old-fashioned pillow fight, had not Lucile
suddenly bethought her that this was not their own home.

"Girls!" she cried, half choked with laughter. "Girls, we'll have
somebody in here, sure as fate, if we don't stop. They'll think there's a
fire or something."

"Or worse," Jessie laughed, good-naturedly, and after that they gradually
quieted down.

As usual, they were dressed and ready on the same instant. Lucile opened
the door quietly and they stepped into the corridor.

"Guess we must have roused the hotel, after all," said Evelyn, ruefully,
as they heard unmistakable sounds of awakening in the neighboring rooms.
"They'll be notifying us that our patronage is no longer desirable if we
don't