“I am trying to reduce my weight, Princess, after so indolent a winter. But it is wonderful to be alive on a day like this and to feel so extraordinarily well!” The Camp Fire guardian walked to the centre of the veranda and paused for a moment, looking out at the landscape. The sun appeared to be shining with a strange brightness as if it also was feeling the year’s new birth. The sky was radiantly blue. At this moment there was a faint noise of a pony’s hoofs striking against the stones in the road and the next the Camp Fire pony, hitched to a small wagon, appeared in a turn of the road about an eighth of a mile away. “I’ll race you to see who gets the mail first,” Mrs. Burton called, and slipped off the porch, running swiftly and lightly over the damp earth, the three girls in pursuit. “Here, David Murray, please give the letters to me, I’ve won,” she demanded, slightly out of breath and holding up her hands for the bag of mail, David having drawn rein to watch the contest. “Yes, but of all the unfair races, this is the climax!” Alice protested, “seeing that you got away before the rest of us knew what you intended.” “Perhaps, Alice, but considering my age and infirmities, I think I should have been allowed a slight advantage.” “Your age and infirmities are not particularly apparent at this instant, Polly,” Miss Patricia announced drily from her seat in the wagon where she and Vera Lagerloff were enthroned surrounded by parcels, “but your lack of dignity undoubtedly is. Do go to your room and do something to your hair; this March wind has blown you to pieces.” If Miss Patricia’s tone was severe, her satisfaction was none the less visible. Moreover, at this same instant her own strange, little gray felt hat, which she affected beyond all others, perhaps under the impression that it was suited to her present informal mode of life, had been tipped to one side, giving her the eccentric appearance to which her companions were accustomed. “Very well, Aunt Patricia, I am ‘yours obediently,’ as the old-fashioned letter writers advise. Anyhow, I believe that is the form of signature you like best from me.” Mrs. Burton, slipping her arms through Bettina Graham’s and Alice’s, started back toward the cabin, Sally climbing into the wagon beside David Murray, since she objected to all unnecessary exertion. “I wonder had I been so autocratic as a Camp Fire guardian as Aunt Patricia has been with me if I should have met with equal success?” Mrs. Burton inquired laughingly. Alice Ashton shook her head. “Oh, I don’t know, perhaps so. You see, I have an idea that you are fairly apt to do what you wish in important matters, Tante, even if you do concede the smaller ones.” Mrs. Burton wrinkled her forehead. “Do you mean my keeping Juliet Temple here with us this winter when neither you girls nor Aunt Patricia like her? There have been reasons I have not been able to explain; besides, Juliet has been very kind and useful to me.”