“Write letters to Nat, I suppose.  Now don’t get any deeper shade of red, dear.  The one that you woke up with is so becoming.”

“How much time have we?” asked Tavia, bestowing more care on the brushing of her short hair now than she had ever thought of giving the mass that the barber still had in his keeping.

“Perhaps an hour, but we want to get out on the lawn, for a game of ball before we start.  I am just dying to play real ball!  I do miss Joe and Roger so!”

“I am sure they miss you, too, Doro.  I have been wondering how you have managed to keep away from them.”

“Well, I have to you know.  Besides I get a letter every day.  Joe said yesterday that your folks had taken the Baldwin house.”

“Father said in his letter he expected to.  But do you know, Doro, I would never advise a poor girl to go out of her own territory, I think I shall be unhappy now—­at home.”

“Nonsense.  You will enjoy the simple life more thoroughly than ever.  That is only a scruple, you are afraid you shouldn’t enjoy anything but Dalton.  You know perfectly well you would rather dig Jacks-in-the-pulpit out by our back wall, than snatch those honeysuckles at your window.”

“Perhaps,” said Tavia vaguely.  “But I guess you are right, Doro.  You always are.  I am just afraid to think of anything but what we’ve got.”

“Not even the five hundred?”

“Oh, that is what upsets me.  I shall expect it to make us millionaires.”

“And so it will in happiness.  I can’t blame you one bit for wanting to get home to talk it over.”

“Oh, that was yesterday.  To-day I want to go to camp.”

Dorothy looked at her uneasily.  She remembered it was told her once that sudden changes were always unwholesome to young people.

“It must be that,” she told herself, “Tavia has had too many sudden changes lately.  And she always was so sentimental.  I believe, after all, it is best for girls to keep busy at practical things.  Tavia has never been trained.”

“Now,” said Tavia, who had been fixing before the pretty dressing table, “I’m ready.  But I have a plan—­to help Nat out with Rosabel’s complexion test.”

“Oh, he was only joking,” exclaimed Dorothy.  “He wouldn’t be so rude.”

“It’s no harm, I’m sure; I’ve done it lots of times.  Come out and I’ll show you.”

Out on the lawn Tavia ran about like the girl she used to be.  She was looking for something.  Down behind the hedge of Cedars then out on the open fields patches of clover and daisies were tangled—­they grew outside the Cedars; beyond the line.

“Here it is!” she called to Dorothy.  “Such a lovely bunch.”

Then running back she brought to Dorothy a long stem of mullen leaves.

“What are they for?” asked Dorothy, for she knew the common plant well enough.

“To paint our cheeks with, and it doesn’t come off!  Won’t Rosabel be surprised.”