As they strolled from the float to the office, Mr. Jonstone looked about him a little uneasily. Not one of the beautiful girls who had looked into his eyes from the page of The Four Seasons was in sight, or, indeed, any girl, woman, or female of any sort whatever. He had led himself to expect a resort crowded with rustling and starchy boarders. He found himself, instead, in a primeval pine forest in which were sheltered many low, austere buildings of logs, above whose great chimneys stood vertical columns of pale smoke. It was not yet dusk, but the air among the long shadows had an icy quality and was heavily charged with the odor of balsam. It was difficult to believe the season summer, and Mr. Jonstone was reminded of December evenings in the Carolinas.

"This is the office," said Mr. Langham, and he ushered them into the presence of a bright birch fire and Maud Darling. Each of the Carolinians drew a quick breath and bowed as if before royalty. Mr. Langham presented them to Miss Darling. She begged them to write their names in the guest book and to warm themselves at the fire.

"And then," said Sam Langham, "I'll shake them up a cocktail and show them their house."

"Are we to have a whole house to ourselves?" asked Colonel Meredith. He had not yet taken his eyes from Maud Darling's face.

"It's only two rooms: bath, parlor, and piazza," she explained.

"That last?" asked Mr. Jonstone.

"It's the same thing as a 'poach,'" explained Mr. Langham with a sly twinkle in his eyes.

"It's to sit on and enjoy the view from," added Maud.

"But I don't want to admire the view," complained Colonel Meredith. "I want to lounge about the office. It's the prerogative of every American citizen to lounge about the office of his hotel."

Colonel Meredith had yet to take his eyes from Maud Darling's face. And it was with protest written all over it that he at length followed his cousin and Mr. Langham into the open air.

The three were presently sampling a cocktail of the latter's shaking in the latter's snug little house, and speech was loosened in their mouths.

"Darling, père," explained Sam Langham, "went broke. He used to run this place as it is run now, with this difference: that in the old days he put up the money, while now it is the guests who pay. Two years ago the Miss Darling you just met was one of the greatest heiresses in America; now she keeps books and makes out bills."

"And are there truly five others equally lovely?" asked Colonel Meredith.

"Some people think that the oldest of the six is also the loveliest," said Sam Langham, loyal to the choice of his own heart. "But they are all very lovely."

To the Carolinians, warmed by Langham's cocktail, it seemed pitiful that six beautiful girls who had had so much should now have so little. And with a little encouragement they would have been moved to the expression of exaggerated sentiments. It was Maud, however, and not the others, who had aroused these feelings in their breasts. The desire to benefit her by some secret action—and then to be found out—was very strong in them both.