[Illustration] [Illustration: How good bacon tasted when you broiled it yourself on a forked stick] THE CAMERONS OF HIGHBORO BY BETH B. GILCHRIST Author of "Cinderella's Granddaughter," etc. ILLUSTRATED BY PHILLIPPS WARD NEW YORK THE CENTURY CO. 1919 Copyright, 1919, by The Century Co. Published, September, 1919 CONTENTS I ELLIOTT PLANS AND FATE DISPOSES 1 II THE END OF A JOURNEY 23 III CAMERON FARM 37 IV IN UNTRODDEN FIELDS 63 V A SLACKER UNPERCEIVED 91 VI FLIERS 120 VII PICNICKING 146 VIII A BEE STING 171 IX ELLIOTT ACTS ON AN IDEA 197 X WHAT'S IN A DRESS? 223 XI MISSING 244 XII HOME-LOVING HEARTS 265 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS How good bacon tasted when you broiled it yourself on a forked stick _Frontispiece_ Laura took the new cousin up to her room 26 Cutting the wiry brown stems in the fern-filled glade. 140 "I'm getting dinner all by myself" 199 THE CAMERONS OF HIGHBORO THE CAMERONS OF HIGHBORO CHAPTER I ELLIOTT PLANS AND FATE DISPOSES Now and then the accustomed world turns a somersault; one day it faces you with familiar features, the next it wears a quite unrecognizable countenance. The experience is, of course, nothing new, though it is to be doubted whether it was ever staged so dramatically and on so vast a scale as during the past four years. And no one to whom it happens is ever the same afterward. Elliott Cameron was not a refugee. She did not trudge Flemish roads with the pitiful salvage of her fortunes on her back, nor was she turned out of a cottage in Poland with only a sackful of her household treasures. Nevertheless, American girl though she was, she had to be evacuated from her house of life, the house she had been building through sixteen petted, autocratic years. This is the story of that evacuation.