“You bother me when you bother Alys, Dirk dear,” said Beth, seeing her chance. “Honest? Oh, come off! What do you care?” stammered Dirk. “I love loving; I just said so,” laughed Beth, tactfully trying not to seem to preach. “It’s such a fairy-land in this house it worries me if you and Alys aren’t just as cozy together as Queen Mab and--and--King Mab! Who was the king of fairy-land?” “Never heard. Oberon,” said Dirk in one breath. “Look here, Beth, if you’ll kind of stick up for me I’ll do it--stop teasing Alys, I mean. Only I’ve got to have a chum in this house. And if Alys gets funny I think I might get back one or two at her.” “Oh, I’ll be a chum; I’d like to,” cried Beth. “Natalie is too big for me and Alys is older than I am, more--less--Alys seems older than she is. I miss Janie; Janie and Tabby, though Poppy is a lovely kitten. That’s a bargain, Dirk. And I sha’n’t be half so nervous when I know you aren’t going to be mean to Alys.” Dirk looked at Beth’s round, rosy, placid face and laughed outright. “Are you nervous, Beth?” he asked. “When people are rather scrappy around the place it makes you feel as if a thunder-shower was coming up. It’s a nervous thing to expect snappings,” returned Beth, laughing too, as she uncoiled her arms and prepared to descend from the swing. Dirk followed her and took her down the room to initiate her in the use of dumb-bells. He was much pleased to find that she could not swing one of more than half the weight of his greatest dumb-bell. He looked up to this sweet cousin at such a rate that it restored his manly sense of superiority to find her muscular strength unequal to his own. The Tanagers and Bluebirds ended with a game of basket-ball, red against blue. Beth had never seen the game, so could not serve her side well this first time. She asked that Dirk might play instead of her and his baseball skill so well fitted him for this game that the Bluebirds won. Beth saw with pleasure that Alys smiled approval on her brother who had helped her side to victory. “Gymnasium isn’t so bad, is it, Bethie?” asked Natalie, when all the girls transformed by street clothing had gone. The maids attendant on her cousins’ friends had appeared from somewhere below stairs at the end of the afternoon’s exercise to get the pretty maidens out of the tanager and bluebird plumage into the costumes of ordinary mortals. It still oppressed Beth’s simple soul to find all the world served to such a degree. “It isn’t bad at all; it’s perfectly splendid. And I wasn’t afraid after the first, because nobody noticed me. Dirk and I had quite a nice time. And Mr. Leonard you couldn’t be afraid of because there’s nothing about him that is one bit frightening,” said Beth. “I’m glad you like him, Bethie; we all do,” said Natalie. “You like everything and everybody, Cozbeth. I never saw such a honey pot.”