sprays all over everything.”

“Yes, I remember. I said that the sunsets were more gorgeous, the birds more brilliant, the flowers brighter, the moon more silver, the sea bluer than anything we’ve ever seen.”

“And that wasn’t all you said,” Alice seemed to be baiting her father now.

“I know it.” He fell right into the trap of the daughter whom he adored. “I said also that there was a bunch of darn Mexicans cluttering up the place down there who put the politeness of us Southerners to shame. Never saw anything like it,” he turned to Mrs. Sherwood with this. “They fall all over themselves every time they turn around, and women just eat it up. Can’t stand it myself. Never get anything done. Have to change that.”

Mrs. Sherwood laughed softly at this. Adair had not changed a bit since she saw him last, and that was longer ago than she liked to remember. That was at her wedding. She smiled now to herself in recalling it. She and Bob, in their anxiety to escape from the wedding reception without being followed, had taken Adair into their confidence. He had promised to get them a horse and buggy, to see that they got off safely to the train that was to bring them up North on their honeymoon. He had told them to leave everything to him, and, in their innocence, they had.

Adair had meant well, but somehow or other in his peremptory handling of events, he got everything in such confusion that practically the whole town turned out to see the Sherwoods off. They, in their turn, almost missed the train, for the horse and buggy never did arrive. However, it had all turned out happily, and when the bride and groom stood on the back of the train and waved to their friends, they had an especially fond feeling for Adair. He, however, felt pretty glum, and their last view of him was of a perplexed young man standing off alone on one corner of the station platform, wondering how in the world all of the people had happened to be there.

No, Adair, she could see, hadn’t changed a bit. He still liked to manage people, still liked to follow up any impulsive idea that came to his active mind. Through the years, tales of his adventures had reached her by letter from friends and relatives. Adair himself was not given to writing. “Takes too much time,” he said. “Can’t sit still that long.”

His visit now was a surprise. He had arrived, unannounced, when she and Nan were in a turmoil unpacking the trunks that Nan had brought back from school with her. Only the peremptory peal of the doorbell had announced his coming. When she opened the door, he had taken her in his arms and kissed her and then, without even introducing Alice whom she had never met, he began immediately to call for Nan.

“Where’s that girl?” he asked almost before he was inside the door. “Come all the way up here from Memphis to see her and then she doesn’t even come to greet me.” In his impatience, he pounded on the floor with his cane. Mrs. Sherwood called her daughter.

“You’re Nan,” he said positively, when Nan finally entered the room. “I’m Adair. I would have known you anyplace. You look and walk and talk (Nan hadn’t said a word) just like your mother. The same eyes, the same hair, the same determined chin. Now I believe everything I’ve been hearing about you. Didn’t before. Sounded like a bunch of nonsense to me.”

“Young school girl takes part in English coronation. Young school girl saves child from rattlesnake. Young school girl saves life of old lady. Didn’t believe a word of it. Now I do. You’re going to Mexico with me.”

“Adair MacKenzie!” Mrs. Sherwood exclaimed. “Will you please lay your cane aside, take off your coat, put your hat down and have a chair before you go sweeping Nan off her feet with your scatterbrained ideas.

“Nan, don’t worry, darling,” she turned toward her daughter and laughed. “This man is really quite harmless. He is Adair MacKenzie, our cousin. Remember, the one we wrote to some years ago when we were in such trouble. He can’t help being like this. He’s always been so.”

“Well, well, well!” Adair grinned rather winningly at Mrs. Sherwood. “I must say, Jessie, you haven’t changed either. Still think you can manage me, do you? Alice,” he turned toward his daughter now for the first time, “this woman you see here is the only woman who ever thought she could wind me around her finger.”

Mrs. Sherwood and Alice exchanged sympathetic glances at this. Alice, too, if her father only knew it, had her ways of managing him. Nan’s mother knew this instinctively and liked Alice.

Nan liked her too. She was tall, slender, with blond curly hair and deep blue eyes. She was pretty and happy looking. And she liked Nan and hoped against hope that her father could work out his plan to induce Nan and her friends to come to Mexico with them. She sat quietly by while he plunged into the matter.

“Come here, Nancy,” he commanded when he had taken off his coat. Nan walked across the room and stood in front of him. “You want to go to Mexico?”

Nan hesitated. She had never before thought of going to Mexico.

“You want to go to Mexico? Yes, or no?”

“Why, I can’t.” Nan hesitated as she answered.

“No such word. Never say can’t to me. Don’t like it. Why can’t you?” Adair MacKenzie frowned at Nan.

“Why, sir, I have friends coming to stay with me for a few weeks. I can’t run away from them.” Nan hardly knew what to say.

“You like them?”

“Of course.”

“Are they as nice as you?”

“Nicer.”

“Don’t be modest. They couldn’t be. When are they coming?”

“I’m not just sure. Perhaps next week.”

“That’s all right then. They’ll come with us. We’ll all go to Mexico together. Now, that’s taken care of.”

It was on this decision, that Bess had entered the room so unexpectedly.

CHAPTER II
YOU’RE GOING WITH ME

“But do you think the others can go?” Bess asked anxiously when Adair MacKenzie and Alice had driven off in search of Mr. Sherwood. “To bring him home where he belongs when he has visitors,” Adair had said.

“What do you think, Momsey?” Nan referred the question to her mother. The three were in the kitchen where Mrs. Sherwood was bustling about preparing a company dinner.

“The good Lord only knows,” Mrs. Sherwood shook her head as she sifted more flour on her biscuit dough and then kneaded it lightly and expertly. “I can only tell you two girls this. When Adair MacKenzie sets out to do something, he usually does it. He has a way about him that almost always wins people over to his side.”

“Yes, but to Mexico. He wants to take us all to Mexico and he doesn’t even know us!” Bess couldn’t believe it, not even after seeing and hearing the old Scotchman. “And if I can’t believe it,” she questioned, “how in the world will the others when they haven’t even seen him or heard him talk?”

“Don’t you worry, Bessie,” Mrs. Sherwood looked affectionately at this girl who was almost a second daughter to her. “They’ll be both seeing him and hearing him talk before long now. If I know Adair MacKenzie at all, he’ll be at work on this thing before another day is up. And if he’s one-half the man he used to be, you might just as well begin packing tonight.”

“You mean to say you are sure we will all go?” Bess was incredulous.

“Yes, you’ll go and have the grandest time you ever have had,” Mrs. Sherwood said confidently. “There never was