she cried. “Do be careful. Come back,” and she forcibly brought her back.

“What’s the trouble? What ever am I doing? I can’t see that I’ve done anything wrong.”

“You’ve stepped over the walls. Who ever knew any one to leave a room by stepping over the wall. Do be careful and go through the doors.”

“Oh, I thought the way you screamed that it was a snake—one of those little green ones.” She obediently moved through the open space meant for a door and went for the broken dishes.

By the time she had returned, Helen had furnished the drawing room. A discarded wash-boiler, turned upside down, served as a piano. A shingle resting upon two stones did very well as a music rest. Helen was down on her knees before it, singing with all her might and thumping with her knuckles until the tin resounded.

Beth had learned her lesson and came into the room by way of the door rather than over the wall. She surveyed the drawing room with pride.

“Scrumptious, isn’t it?” asked Helen.

“It’s certainly kertish,” replied Beth. Kertish was a new word to Helen.

“Now what does ker-tish mean, Beth Wells? You are forever using it.”

“It means scrumptious and a whole lot more,” said Beth. “I can’t just exactly explain. It means just what the drawing-room is now.”

“It does look rather nice,” said Helen complacently. “These chairs in pink velvet and brocade are certainly scrumptious.”

She pointed to several billets of wood which she had stood on end to serve as chairs. Then she seated herself cautiously upon them, for pink velvet chairs made from a cross-cut on square timber will wobble sometimes in spite of one.

“They certainly are ‘kertish’,” said Beth. She had made up that word herself. It expressed all she had in her mind, and being her very own word, she could thrust it about to fit any feeling or any condition. She was moving about the drawing-room in a dignified fashion, arranging at regular intervals wild roses on the heavy sod. Helen watched her.

“The green velvet carpet with pink roses is just the thing to go with these chairs,” said Helen. “I must say that in all my travels I never saw anything more scrumptious.”

“It is the most kertish thing I ever saw,” said Beth.

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