“All right.  I surrender—­ don’t shoot,” laughed Betty, coming over and perching on the railing beside Mollie.  “I admit we should probably have more fun at the lodge than we could anywhere else.  I was only trying to look on the bright side of things in case our plans should fall through.  Hello—­ who’s this?”

“This” proved to be Mollie’s little sister Dora, or “Dodo,” as she was called by almost everybody.  With a sigh of relief, the girls saw that Dodo’s twin brother, Paul, was not with her, for together the children were a simply unconquerable pair.

The twins had been spoiled by their widowed mother, Mrs. Billette, even before the time when they had been kidnapped and spirited off by a hideous Spaniard.  But since their recovery, their joyful mother had indulged them in every way until they had become well nigh unmanageable.

Yet in spite of everything, the twins were very lovable, and every one loved them, even those whom they annoyed most.

And now as Dodo tore up the street toward them, waving something white in her hand, the girls instinctively glanced about to see what they ought to put out of sight before the cyclone struck them.

“Thank goodness, Paul isn’t with her,” murmured Grace.  “Then we would be in for it.”

“Dodo,” cried Mollie as the child started up the walk, “scrape some of that mud off your feet before you come up, You will get Betty’s porch all dirty.”

“Name’s Dora—­ not Dodo,” the little girl answered, paying not the slightest heed to Mollie’s caution about the mud.  “Dodo’s a baby’s name—­ don’t like it.  Got something for you.”

She stumbled heedlessly up the steps, leaving a trail of mud behind her, and almost breaking her neck in the bargain.

“Now just look at Betty’s porch,” Mollie was beginning in exasperation when Betty laughingly interfered.

“Oh, let her alone, Mollie,” she coaxed.  “The porch was dirty anyway and—­ what’s that you have in your hand, Dodo?”

“Sumfin’ for Mollie,” answered Dodo, leaning sulkily against the rail while the girls regarded her anxiously.  “An’ if Mollie aren’t nice to me she can’t have it.”

“Oh, for goodness’ sake be nice to her and get it over with, Mollie,” urged Grace, uneasily conscious of the candy box she had shoved hastily behind her.  She was afraid one corner of it might show.

So Mollie got down from her perch on the railing and went over coaxingly to the little girl.

“Give it to Mollie, honey,” she begged.  “I’ll even call you Dora, if you will.”

“Always Dora—­ never Dodo?” asked Dodo eagerly, for she was growing out of babyhood just enough to resent being called by her baby name.

“Always Dora,” Mollie promised.

For answer Dodo held out the white thing she had waved at them from the street, and with a little cry of excitement Mollie saw that it was a letter addressed to her in her Uncle John’s firm hand.