Toward the end of June a week of almost tropical heat had made the evenings outdoors, on the little porch, and in the garden itself, events to be looked forward to throughout the day, Joseph Bell, Peter, Ross, and Rufus, thought of them many times during the hottest day of all--midsummer, the twenty-first of the month--and came home at night to find the table laid for a cool-looking supper out under the shadow of the maple, and Mrs. Bell, Jane, and Nancy, in thin summer frocks, putting the finishing touches to the attractive meal about to be served there. Up in a window of the house next door, behind closed blinds, an elderly neighbour had watched Jane wreathing a big glass bowl full of strawberries with a crisp little green vine spray. "The Bells certainly are the queerest people anybody ever lived neighbour to," she said over her shoulder to her sister, a withered little spinster, who, in this hot, small upstairs room, was sewing at another window, which did not look out upon the garden, and therefore could have its blinds open. "Anybody ’d think life was just one picnic to them. Think of lugging all those dishes outdoors this hot night, and then lugging ’em all in again--and they all dressed out in flowered muslins!" The sister came to the window and peered somewhat wistfully out through the closed blinds. "It does look sort of pleasant out there," she said. "And we certainly can’t say they ’re not good neighbours. Mrs. Bell sent over a whole tin of those light rolls of hers this morning. They ’ll come in handy for supper." "There come the men." Mrs. Hunter brought her gaze to bear upon the four who had stolen up to the gate, and who, as she spoke, burst out suddenly with a crisp clapping of hands which brought the three in the "flowered-muslins" to the right-about. If Mrs. Hunter and Miss Maria, watching those four advance, could have heard what they were saying as they caught sight of the flower-decked table, they might have had a new light shed upon the question whether the trouble of bringing forth all those dishes from the house had been worth while. The neighbours saw the merry little meal eaten, and saw all hands clear it away at the end, making short work of the many dishes. But afterward twilight fell, and little could be discerned except the gleam of the light dresses and the presence near of dark forms lying on the grass. It was after the midsummer moon was lighting the garden into a small fairy-land that Peter, springing up, exclaimed, "There’s Olive and Murray!" and ran to greet them. There was a third person with them, and a moment later the others heard Peter exclaim, in a tone of surprise: "Well, well, well! You don’t mean to say this is----Why, how are you? How are you? I ’m tremendously glad to see you!" "Thank you! I ’m a good deal gladder to be home than anybody possibly can be to have me." And Jane, recognising first the peculiar quality of the voice, cried out: