attempt to get it to you without her knowledge.”

“She had it? And gave it back to you? Why, Dorothy, if she had—but of course it would not really have mattered,” and Tavia slipped the letter into her blouse. “I’m awfully obliged. Did you hear from home?”

“No,” answered Dorothy simply, a flush covering her fair face as she saw Tavia hide the letter. “I’m going out for a few minutes—so you may read that very important note, Tavia.”

CHAPTER VI ON THE LAWN

ON THE LAWN

“When I was a very small girl,” exclaimed Mollie Richards, otherwise known as Dick, “I used to hope I would die young so I could escape the tooth-filling process, but here I am, doing these dreadful exams, and I haven’t died yet.”

“Never despair,” quoted Rose-Mary. “The worst is yet to come.”

“Cheer up, fellows,” lisped little Nita Brandt, “We’ve been promised a clam-bake when it’s all over.”

“Yes, I fancy it will be all over with me when that clam-bake arrives,” sighed Edna Black. “Since Tavia has ‘turned turtle’ I don’t even have the fun of sneezing for exercise.”

“It’s an ill wind—and so on,” ventured Dick. “That was a most abominable habit of yours—sneezing when you were too lazy to open your mouth to laugh.”

“But I never would have believed that Tavia would get so—so—”

“Batty,” finished Amy Brooks. “It’s slang, but I know of no English word into which the explicit ‘batty’ may be translated.”

“And Tavia of all girls,” added Ned, ponderingly.

“But it seems to agree with her,” declared Cologne. “Haven’t you noticed her petal complexion?”

“Too much like the drug store variety,” objected Nita. “I like something more substantial.”

“Sour grapes,” fired back Ned, who could always be depended on to take Tavia’s part. “Yours is so perfect—”

“Oh, I know—freckles,” admitted the confused Nita with a pout. “Fair skins always freckle.”

“Then why don’t you close the ‘fair’ and raffle off,” suggested Dick. “Much easier than sleeping in lemon juice every 

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