perfect and no one could outdo her in anything.

"Come on, Joy, hurry up. Let's get started!" said Bob suddenly.

"But we'll have to wait for Kit to get out of that dress and change to her own."

"So Lady Merriweather isn't going to step back into the frame? Too bad!" laughed Phil. "It was very becoming!"

The girl who appeared a few moments later in torn skirt was no less attractive than the Colonial maid. To the eyes of the modern young people, she seemed far more human and companionable.

As the automobile carried them away. Bet turned to her father:

"Did you ever see anyone who could choose such good friends as I can?"

"Never in this world, Bet!" laughed the Colonel as he pinched her cheek.

CHAPTER V

ACROSS THE HUDSON

Before saying goodnight to her chums, Bet had made a plan for them to come back early on Monday for another picnic.

"When we get to studying, we just drop swimming and everything else."

"I'll be most afraid to swim in a big river like the Hudson," said Kit with a shiver. "I learned to swim in a water hole in Indian Creek, and it wasn't much more than just deep enough to cover me."

"You'll love the Hudson!" declared Joy. "At high tide it's great!"

"I didn't know that a river had a tide."

"Close to the sea they do. The Hudson has, as you'll soon learn. It has a tide and even a good strong undertow in places. —Well, you just have to know the Hudson to appreciate all its fine points," Bet exclaimed with enthusiasm.

"Be sure and bring your camera, Miss Fixit, and take that picture of the queen's fan. I'll be home all morning." Because Shirley was always tinkering with her camera, the Colonel had playfully given her the name of Miss Fixit.

So the girls had agreed to come early and have a long day at the beach that belonged to the Merriweather estate.

"I don't hear any invitations for us to come along. Don't you think boys enjoy picnics as well as girls?" protested Bob Evans.

"Boys spoil all the fun," said Joy contemptuously, but with mischief in her eyes.

"No, they don't, Joy!" Bet disagreed. "Sometimes they are very useful. —To build picnic fires and keep them going."

"Oh, yes, you're always glad to make use of us. But you never invite us to any of your good times. Never!"

"If big brothers wouldn't tease so much, they might get invited once in a while," laughed Joy as she looked up at her tall brother, who had always been her protector and hero as long as she could remember.

"Do come," shouted Bet as they got into the car. "Even if we didn't think to invite you, we'll be mighty glad to see you when you get there." As she turned and linked her arm in her father's, she little dreamed that her last remark would be remembered by all four girls as a strange prophecy.

The girls saw each other only for a moment at church the next day. Bet left immediately after the service, as the Colonel was expecting guests for dinner. She gave her friends a smile, a wave of the hand and a funny pantomime which they understood. They were to be at the Manor the next morning, early.

And early it was. Bet had been up for hours but Colonel Baxter had not finished his breakfast when the girls came in like shafts of sunlight through shutters.

Shirley was loaded down with two cameras and a tripod, her face glowing with the pleasure she felt in being able to do a favor for Bet's father.

Shirley was the only one of the group whose parents were not well off financially. She was the oldest of four children and lived in a small house on the main street of the village. She had done all sorts of odd jobs in order to earn her longed-for cameras, and had studied them well.

Sometimes when the girls talked of the future when they would go to college, Shirley's face became clouded, for her father's poor health made it impossible for him to be steadily employed. Shirley's chances of college seemed very slim. The Colonel often called upon Shirley to take pictures of Bet on the grounds of the estate, as an excuse to give the girl a chance to earn a few dollars.

"Do hurry, Dad, and finish your breakfast! We're anxious to be off. Couldn't the pictures wait?"

"No, Bet, I want to take them now," replied Shirley. "You can go along if you want to and I'll come later."

"We'll wait," answered Bet cheerfully.

The Colonel rose and saluted, "I am at your service!"

Shirley arranged the lighting like an expert and took several poses of the little fan against a background of black velvet, placing it in different degrees of light. The other girls were not particularly interested. Shirley's hobby was all right, when she took pictures of them, but just now they were impatient to be off.

Then Shirley had to waste more time showing the Colonel about the latest self-photography attachment that she had recently bought.

"I got tired always being left out of the group. And the other girls can't take pictures to suit me."

"Is this the same idea that is used in photographing wild animals?" asked Colonel Baxter.

"It's the same principle, but a little wire or spring is touched by the animal and this releases the shutter and for night pictures sets off a flash powder as well. I'm going to get one of those attachments by winter time, as the camera company has offered a prize for wild animal pictures."

"Aw, come on, Shirley," called Joy. "You're an old slow poke. You finished that picture long ago."

But Shirley delayed still longer to put her large camera carefully away. The small one she tucked under her arm to take with her to the river.

It was Kit's first trip to the little beach belonging to Bet's father. The bath house with its tiny dressing rooms pleased her immensely. "Imagine," she exclaimed, "building a house to dress and undress in. A clump of mesquite bushes always served my purpose."

Kit could not pretend to be other than she was. Fearing that these girls, whose homes were so elegant, might look down upon her, she had planned to keep her affairs to herself, but whenever anything unusual came up, she was startled by the contrast and blurted out the queer makeshifts that they had in her crude home in the desert.

She had no need to fear. The girls were as interested in Kit's description of her home life as they were in the exploits of the cowboys that she loved to talk about.

"I'd just love to eat out under a cotton-wood tree by the stream. That must be a lovely way to live," exclaimed Bet.

"I don't think you'd enjoy it for long, after what you're used to. You'd want to get back to all that lovely glassware and beautiful dishes. You'd miss your Manor."

"Of course I'd miss the Manor if I was away from it, but I'd love the other, too, I know I would."

They had just come in sight of the broad Hudson and Kit stopped short to gaze upon that wide flow of water.

"And oh, look at that lovely boat out there! Whose is it?"

"That's Dad's motor boat. I'm not allowed to run it, although I know I could just as well as not. Dad seems to think I'm still a baby and a girl baby at that."