the puffing away of the car.

It was no small wonder that the coming of the Fire Bird should excite such comment among the girls at Glenwood school. An automobile ride was no common happening there, for while many of the parents of the young ladies owned such machines, Glenwood was far away from home and so were the autos.

Edna Black, called Ned Ebony, and regarded as Tavia’s most intimate friend, insisted that Tavia looked like a little brown sparrow, as she flew off, with the streamers of her brown veil flying like wings. Molly Richards, nick-named Dick, and always “agin’ th’ government” like the foreigner in politics, declared that the girls “were not in it” with the boys, for, as she expressed it, “girls always do look like animated rag-bags in an automobile.”

“Boys just put themselves on the seat and stay put,” she announced, “but girls—they seem to float above the car, and they give me the shivers!”

“All the same,” interrupted Cologne, “the damsels manage to hang on.”

“And Dorothy was a picture,” ventured Nita Brant, the girl given to “excessive expletive ejaculations,” according to the records of the Nick Association, the official club of the Juniors.

So the Fire Bird, with its gay little party, flew over the hills of Glenwood. Dorothy was agreeably surprised to find her cousins just as good natured and just as boy-like as they had been when she had last seen them, and they, in turn, complimented her on her improved appearance.

“You look younger though you talk older,” Ned assured Dorothy, with a nice regard for the feminine feeling relative to age.

“And Tavia looks—looks—how?” stammered Nat, with a significant look at his elder brother.

“Search me!” replied the other evasively, determined not to be trapped by Nat into any “expert opinion.”

“Beyond words!” finished Nat, with a glance of unstinted admiration at his companion.

“Bad as that?” mocked Tavia. “The girls do call me ‘red head’ and ‘brick-top.’ Yes, even ‘carroty’ is thrown at me when I do anything to make Ned mad. You know that’s the girl,” she hurried to add, “the girl—Edna Black—Ned Ebony for short, you know. She’s the jolliest crowd—”

“How many of her?” asked Ned, pretending to be ignorant of Tavia’s school vernacular.

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