"It amounts to about the same thing, whether she is devoted to men, or they to her," and there was in Emily's tone such a note of tragic melancholy that the girls could not refrain from laughing.

"Oh, what a happy nook and cranny of the great world this dear old Hetherford is," cried Eleanor, clasping her hands behind her head, and looking out with dreamy eyes over the sweep of softly undulating lawn that stretched away toward the manor gates. "It all seems so idyllic to me. There is so much petty jealousy and miserable heartburning beyond the confines of this little haven of rest. People's motives are so often selfish that one grows strangely doubting, even of one's friends. Do you know," leaning forward impulsively and speaking with deeper earnestness, "I think we girls have found the secret of true friendship—mutual trust and respect. These are what have made our long intercourse such a happy one."

"Indeed you are right, Eleanor, dear," Jean replied gently.

"The bother of it all will be," interrupted Nathalie following out her own train of thought "that Mademoiselle 52 will come here with trunks full of fine clothes, and we will be obliged to dress up."

52

"I would like to see the girl who could make me discard my shirt and blazer," laughed Nan defiantly.

"How would we look en grande toilette with such hands as these," said Jean, thrusting forward her own little brown ones.

"Attractive, but from a different standpoint," Nan asserted with a fine assumption of authority. "Everything depends upon your point of view, according to Henry James. Now, from my artistic pinnacle," tilting her head to one side, and surveying the group with critical, but approving eyes, "I declare I prefer brown hands to white ones."

"By the way," asked Jean, with well-feigned indifference, "what did you think of the naval officers?"

"To return to our muttons," murmured Nathalie, with a sidelong glance at her sister.

"Mr. Dudley was very pleasant and agreeable," replied Emily, "but I thought Mr. Farr rather uninteresting."

"Well," laughed Eleanor demurely, "Nan is right. Everything does depend upon one's point of view. Now I thought Mr. Farr decidedly attractive, and Mr. Dudley just a good-natured boy."

"That reminds me of something 

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