Barbara stood behind the blind.

"The audacity of that!" she cried, as Rosamond came in. "I shook right
out of my points when I heard you! Old Mrs. Lovett has been here, and
has eaten up exactly the last slice of cake but one. So that's Dakie
Thayne?"

"Yes. He's a nice little fellow. Aren't these lovely flowers?"

"O my gracious! that great six-foot cadet!"

"It doesn't matter about the feet. He's barely eighteen. But he's
nice,--ever so nice."

"It's a case of Outledge, Leslie," Dakie Thayne said, going down the
hill. "They treat those girls--amphibiously!"

"Well," returned Leslie, laughing, "_I'm_ amphibious. I live in the
town, and I _can_ come out--and not die--on the Hill. I like it. I
always thought that kind of animal had the nicest time."

They met Alice Marchbanks with her cousin Maud, coming up.

"We've been to see the Holabirds," said Dakie Thayne, right off.

"I wonder why that little Ruth didn't come last night? We really
wanted her," said Alice to Leslie Goldthwaite.

"For batrachian reasons, I believe," put in Dakie, full of fun. "She
isn't quite amphibious yet. She don't come out from under water. That