immaculate clothes. Why should men, she asked herself, be so ready and
willing to give themselves completely up to effeminate habits when
their blood was hot within them, and the great Open was calling them
with such a strong insistent voice?

The young woman's arrival brought one of the young men to his feet,
with the offer of a hammock.

"Please do not trouble yourself," she told him. "I must hurry and get
ready for dinner. I know that father is very angry with me."

"He is not the only one who is angry, I can assure you," Sammie Dingle
remarked. "We have been furious with you for leaving us this afternoon
when we needed your company so much in the car. I cannot understand
how you can enjoy yourself alone out on the river in that nasty boat."

"No, I suppose you cannot," Lois replied, and so infatuated was Sammie
with the young woman that he did not notice the slightest sarcasm in
her words.

"Hurry up, Lois," her brother ordered, "I'm almost starved. Dad's got
it in for you."

"All right, Dick," was her reply. "I shall be down in a few minutes.
Why did you wait for me? You had better go to dinner at once, if you
are so hungry."

It took Lois but a short time upstairs, and when she came down she
found the three men in the dining-room. Her father was in one of his
surly moods, and this she could tell at the first glance. He was a