after that, old boy,” remarked Ned. “It must be something awful to have a thing like that in your system.”

But Nat was not altogether joking. In fact he had more reason than was apparent for wishing Tavia was with the little party. Tavia had written one or two letters to Nat—just friendly notes of course—but the tone of them caused the youth to think that Tavia Travers when with Dorothy Dale was one girl, and Tavia Travers with others—the Buffalo people for example—might be quite a different person.

“She’s like an hour glass,” thought Nat, as he stood on the side porch and tried to laugh at himself for being “spoony.” Then he went on: “She’s full of ‘sand’ all right, but too easily influenced. Now with Dorothy—”

But at that Nat turned suddenly and went to join the others in the library. It was nonsense for him to worry about a girl—probably she would not thank him for his trouble, could she know that he had the audacity to question her conduct.

But, in spite of this, thoughts of Tavia persisted in thrusting themselves upon him. After all, sincerity of purpose is a power that, once aroused, is not easily cast aside. It is, without question, one of the greatest factors for good in all this big and complicated system of endeavor—in reality the tie that binds.

So that Nat had taken Tavia’s affairs “to heart” as he admitted to himself, when thinking the entire matter over very late that night, and, from that time on, whether he willed or not, it seemed to him that these affairs of Tavia’s had a queer way of “following him up,” although he little realized that this was the price he would be called upon to pay for his sincerity of purpose—the live factor that exists in spite of all obstacles of indifference.

CHAPTER XII DOROTHY IS WORRIED

DOROTHY IS WORRIED

Dorothy had been at the Cedars one short, delightful week when again the question of Tavia and her plans came up for serious consideration. Mrs. White and her niece sat out on the veranda, with the early summer flowers perfuming the soft zephyrs that came through the vine-covered lattice, and they were talking of the absent one—wondering why she did not come to Birchland and instead went to the city in the summer—to Buffalo when everybody in the place (except the tourists on the way to Niagara to the Falls), were leaving for more quiet and recreative surroundings.

“I’m afraid,” 

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