ft black cloud. Billie
was asleep.

CHAPTER XVII

FUN AND NONSENSE

The next morning the girls were up with the sun. They were in hilarious
spirits and made so much noise that Mrs. Danvers, busily getting
breakfast in the kitchen below, smiled to herself and hugged a big collie
that at that moment strolled leisurely into the room.

The big collie's name was Bruce, and he belonged to Uncle Tom of the
lighthouse. But although Uncle Tom was his master and was first in his
dog's heart, Connie's mother was his very next best beloved and Bruce
spent his time nearly equally between the lighthouse and Uncle Tom and
the cottage and Connie's mother.

Now he answered the woman's hug with a loving look from his beautiful
eyes and waved his brush gratefully.

"Bruce darling," said Connie's mother, as she lifted a pan of biscuits
and shoved it into the oven, "it's a perfectly gorgeous morning and a
perfectly gorgeous world and you're a perfectly gorgeous dog. Now don't
deny it. You know you are! How about it?"

To which Bruce responded by a more vigorous waving of his white tipped
brush that very nearly swept a second pan of biscuits off on to the
well-swept floor.

Connie's mother rescued it with a quick motion of her arm and stared at
Bruce reproachfully.

"Bruce, just suppose you had spoiled it!" she scolded, as she slipped the
pan into the oven after its fellow. "Don't you know that I have four
hungry girls to feed, to say nothing of a great big husband----"

"Now what are you saying about me?" asked a man's pleasant voice from the
doorway, adding as Connie's mother turned toward him: "Can't I help,
dear? You look rather warm."

"Warm! Well, I should say I was!" said Connie's mother, sweeping a stray
lock of hair back out of her eyes. "But what do I care when it's such a
wonderful world? Haven't I got my baby back again, and three others as
well? They're sweet girls, aren't they, John? And Billie Bradley is going
to be a beauty."

"Well, I know some one else who is a beauty," said Mr. Danvers, looking
admiringly at his wife's rosy face and wide-apart, laughing eyes, adding
with a smile: "Even though she has a big patch of flour under one eye."

"Oh!" cried Connie's mother, and wiped her face vigorously with a pink
and white checked apron. "Now just for that," she said, turning to her
husband, who was still lounging in the doorway, "I'm going to put