Kit could see the stranger was regaling her father with a humorous view of
the whole affair. Shad tried to signal to her behind his back some
mysterious warning, and even Mr. Hicks looked jocular.

Kit leaned both hands on the railing, and stared hard at the trespasser.
He was a young man, dressed in a light gray suit with high sport boots. He
was, as Mrs. Gorham expressed it later, "light complected" and tanned so
deeply that his blonde, curly hair seemed even lighter. He lifted his hat
to Kit, with one foot on the lower step, while Mr. Robbins called up:

"Mr. Howard, my dear, our fruit expert from Washington, whom I was
expecting."

And Kit bowed, blushing furiously and wishing with all her heart she might
have silenced Evie's audible and disappointed ejaculation:

"Didn't he hook huckleberries after all?"




CHAPTER II

MRS. GORHAM SMELLS SMOKE


"I was perfectly positive that if we went away and left you in charge for
one single day, Kit, you would manage to get into some kind of
misadventure," Jean said, reproachfully, that evening. "If you only
wouldn't act on the impulse of the moment. Why on earth didn't you tell