successfully under her guidance that presently the aunts forbore to
watch for disaster through a spyglass.

She could play tennis, too, with the best, as she demonstrated on the
courts of The Beaches Club. Her proficiency and spirit speedily made
friends for her among the young people of the colony, who visited her
and invited her to take part in their amusements. She was prepared to
ride on her bicycle wherever the interest of the moment called her,
and deplored the solemnity of the family carryall. When her aunts
declared that a wheel was too undignified a vehicle on which to go out
to luncheon, she compromised on a pony cart as a substitute, for she
could drive almost as well as she could sail. She took comparatively
little interest in the garden, and was not always at home at
five-o'clock tea to read aloud the latest books; but her amiability
and natural gayety were like sunshine in the house. She talked freely
of what she did, and she had an excellent appetite.

"She's as unlike the girls of my day as one could imagine, and I do
wish she wouldn't drive about the country bareheaded, looking like a
colt or a young Indian," said Miss Rebecca pensively one morning, just
after Mabel's departure for the tennis-court. "But I must confess that
she's the life of the place, and we couldn't get on without her now. I
don't think, though, that she has done three hours of solid reading
since she entered the house. I call that deplorable."

"She's a dear," said Aunt Carry. "We haven't been much in the way of
seeing young girls of late, and Mabel doesn't seem to me different
from most of those who visit her. Twenty years ago, you remember,
girls pecked at their food and had to lie down most of the time. Now
they eat it. What I can't get quite used to is the habit of letting