“Yes. Mrs. Cortlandt, yes. Oh! No, I didn’t know when you spoke. We were that instant speaking of you, prince,” she said and the girls looked at one another and Beth leaned forward with sudden interest in her eyes. “How exceedingly kind you are!” exclaimed Mrs. Cortlandt, after she had silently listened, with eyes and lips smiling, to the voice at the other end of the wire, which the children could not hear. “Yes, they all ride. Certainly they may. Without any chaperon, no grown person? Not even me? I think you will be a more than sufficient chaperon! May I send a groom, in case of trouble of any sort? Thank you. At eleven? They shall be ready. I will have their mounts here. Indeed I am grateful, prince, and I can assure you of a blissful quartette of young things when they are told of your invitation. Good-bye, prince. Once more my sincerest thanks.” Aunt Alida rang off and turned to the three girls, her face alight with her great tidings. “Wasn’t that a coincidence, dear lassies? Could you guess who telephoned, with what message?” she demanded breathlessly. “The prince wants us to ride with him!” cried Natalie, Alys and Beth, as if it were a carefully rehearsed trio. “Precisely that!” Aunt Alida clapped her hands, laughing as though the guess were a brilliant triumph. “At eleven to-morrow! Not a grown person with you, but the prince! He says he wants it to be a youthful frolic, just as he rode with his sisters and brothers. So you are going. You must take him out on our Quiet Road, as we call it. I believe I will have a lunch put up, to be hung in a pannier over some one’s saddle! I’m certain the prince would enjoy its flavor, eaten out-of-doors, informally. You will show him Trump, Bethie!” “Aunt Alida, I can make fudge rather splendidly. Do you think I might make some to take with us?” Beth asked anxiously. “I’m not sure the cook would allow it, dear; I certainly would, but he is--formidable is a mild, safe word!” Aunt Alida said. “Mrs. Hodgman has a gas stove in her rooms; I saw it,” cried Beth. “If you would let me make it, Aunt Alida, it would be fine to eat out under a tree, and when I went home, and made fudge for the girls, I’d say I was Fudge Maker to the Royal Family--like the labels on English gelatines and needles and things!” “Oh, Beth, you are a scream!” cried Alys. “How you mix up! I wouldn’t care to be like a label myself.” “Beth’s meaning is clear,” laughed her aunt. “Bless your heart, Bethikins, if you can win Mrs. Hodgman over, I’ve no objections to your making anything you like.” “Mrs. Hodgman never has to be won over; she is always ’way over when you ask her a favor,” said Beth, as she ran off to ask the housekeeper this favor. She ran into Dirk in the doorway. “You’ve got Hodgie’s measure, all right,” he remarked, hearing what Beth had just said. “I was around seeing Ken Appleton’s new printing-press,” he added, replying to the inquiry in his mother’s eyes. “Anything up?”