the glory of a by-gone day. Hinpoha stood enraptured before the instrument.

"I've always been wild to learn to play on a harp," she said, drawing her fingers caressingly over the strings and awaking faint, throbbing tones, too soft to be discords, that echoed through the room like the ghost of a song played years ago, and trembled away until they seemed to mingle with the golden light that flooded the room through the west windows.

"If I had my choice of being any of the fabulous creatures in the mythology book," said Hinpoha musingly, "I think I'd choose to be a harpy."

"A what?" asked Nyoda quizzically.

"A harpy," repeated Hinpoha, touching the strings again. Then, looking up and seeing the twinkle in Nyoda's eye, she added, "Weren't the Harpies beautiful maidens that sat on the rocks and played harps and lured the sailors to destruction with their ravishing songs? Oh, I say, they were too," she finished feebly, amid a perfect shout of laughter from the girls. "Well, what were they, then? Horrible monsters? Oh, what a shame! What a misleading thing the English language is, anyway! You'd naturally expect a harpy to play on a harp. Anyway, you needn't laugh, Sahwah. I remember once you said in class that a peptonoid was a person with a lot of pep, so there!"

Sahwah joined gaily in the laugh that followed at her expense. "So I did," she admitted unblushingly, "and what's more, I only discovered day before yesterday that a trapezoid wasn't a trapeze performer!"

"Oh, Sahwah, you imp, you're making that up," said Gladys in a skeptical tone.

"Nice child," said Nyoda, patting Sahwah approvingly, trying to turn the laugh upon herself, on the principle that the hostess should always break another cut glass tumbler when the guest breaks one."

"Oh dear," said Migwan regretfully, "why did you say that about Harpies, Hinpoha, and make us laugh? I was just thinking how beautiful you looked, leaning over that harp, just like that oil painting in the gallery at home, and was getting into quite a poetical mood over it, when you had to make us laugh and spoil it all. I declare, that was too bad!"

"Serves you right for getting poetical about me," retorted Hinpoha.

"But Nyoda," said Gladys, whose eyes had been feasting on the details of the house with every increasing wonder and pleasure, "how does it come that you moved into this little town from Philadelphia, and how do you happen to be living in this wonderful old house?"

"I inherited this place a few months after I was married," replied Nyoda. "It is the old Carver House; built before the Revolution and kept in the family ever since. My mother was a Carver—that's how I happened to inherit it. She died years ago, without ever dreaming that the house would come to me, for she was not a direct heir, being only a third cousin. But the last of the direct line died out with old Uncle Jasper Carver and that left me the only living blood relation. So this beautiful house and everything in it came to me."

"Oh, Nyoda, I should think you would have died of joy!" said Hinpoha in a rapt tone. "I know people who would give their eyebrows to own so much old Colonial furniture."

"This house has seen proud days in its time," went on Nyoda. "The Carvers were staunch patriots, and many a meeting of loyal citizens was held around that table in the dining room. They say that Benjamin Franklin was once a guest here. The history of the Carver family was Uncle Jasper's pet hobby, and he has it all printed up in books which you may see in the library.

"The Carvers have always been a fighting family," she continued, with a flash of pride in her black eyes. "They fought in the Revolution, in the Civil War, and in the Spanish-American War. But now that the country is again calling men to her aid," she finished with a sigh, "there are no more Carver men to answer the call. I am the last of the Carvers, and I am only a woman."

"But you've done all that you could do," said Migwan staunchly. "You've sent your husband."

Nyoda drew herself up unconsciously as her eyes sought the picture of Sherry on the mantelpiece with the silk flag draped over it.

"Yes," she echoed softly, "the last of the Carvers has done her bit."

A dinner bell clanged through the house and Nyoda sprang up with a start. "Dinner will be ready in fifteen minutes, girls," she exclaimed. "Scurry upstairs and remove the stains of travel while I consult the cook."

"Why, Nyoda," said Sahwah in surprise, "I didn't know you had a cook. You told us coming up from the station that you did all your own work because you didn't think it was patriotic to hire servants at this time and take them away from the more essential industries!"

Nyoda looked nonplussed for a moment and then she laughed heartily. "Special occasion," she remarked ceremoniously, and disappeared with a chuckle through a door at the end of the hall.

The four girls went leisurely up the broad staircase with its white spindles and polished mahogany rail to the rooms overhead, furnished with huge curtained four-posters and fascinating chests of drawers with cut-glass knobs.

In fifteen minutes the bell sent its summons through the house again and the Winnebagos responded with alacrity. Nyoda stood in the dining-room doorway to receive them, looking rather mysterious, they thought, and Sahwah's sharp eyes counted a sixth place laid at the table. Nyoda seated them, apparently not noticing the empty place, and then tinkled the little bell that stood on the table at her place. In answer to her tinkle the pantry door opened and in came the cook carrying a tray of dishes. The Winnebagos looked up idly as she came in and the next moment the ancestral Chippendale chairs of the Carver family were shoved back unceremoniously as their occupants joined in a mad scramble to see who could reach the cook first, while Nyoda looked on and laughed gleefully.

"Veronica! Veronica Lehar!" cried the Winnebagos in wonder and ecstasy. "You here!" "How perfectly gorgeous!" "How did you happen to come?"

"By urgent invitation, sweet lambs," replied Nyoda, "just like some other people I could name. She blazed the trail for the Winnebagos by arriving yesterday."

"Oh, you naughty, bad 'Bagos," said Migwan, embracing both Veronica and Nyoda in her delight, "to frame up such a surprise for us! We standing there cool as cucumbers in the front room of the house talking for half an hour and Veronica out in the kitchen all the while, masquerading as cook!"

"You pretty nearly upset the surprise, though, Mistress Sahwah," said Nyoda, "with your suspicions in regard to my having a cook. It's next to impossible to take you in, you eagle-eyed Indian! Come, Veronica, roll down your sleeves and take your rightful place at the table. Now, girls,

"While we're here let's give a cheer
And sing to Wohelo!"

And then let's dip our wheatless crusts into our meatless broth for the eternal glory and prosperity of the Winnebagos!"

CHAPTER IV

VERONICA

Dinner over, the Winnebagos fell upon the dishes like a swarm of bees and had them cleared up and washed in a twinkling. Then they gathered in the long parlor where the harp stood, and to please them Nyoda turned off the electric lights and lit the candles in their old-fashioned holders. The little twinkling lights multiplied themselves in the mirrors until it seemed as if there were myriads of them; grotesque six-fold shadows danced on the walls as the girls moved about; the gilded harp gleamed softly in the mellow light and an atmosphere of by-gone days hovered over the room. It was an ideal moment for confidences, for heart-to-heart talks, and they spoke of many things which were sacred to one another, little intimate echoes of the days when they first learned to work and play together.

"Don't you remember, Veronica," said Migwan, "when you became a Winnebago