"It's a good beginning; enough to make some one ready to help you with an endowment fund, or the like, for, of course, you will have to have such help," said Basil, the careful one. "'Little drops of water, little grains of sand,'" chanted Prue. "Just so. You must let me look at your costume, Prue, and see if it is all right," said Bartlemy. "When can you have a rehearsal?" "We shall rehearse to-morrow night, but not in costume," said Wythie. "We waited for you, Battalion B, to be here. Hester is coming out, and her cousin." "To stay over Sunday?" asked Bruce. "Hester will; Lester Baldwin goes back on the last train--unless he misses it, then we shall have to send him up to you boys," said Rob. "You don't look hospitable." "Yes, we are," remonstrated Basil. "Send him to us in any case, girls; it is ridiculous to let him go back on that crawling train when he might as well have a pleasant Sunday with the crowd. You approve of him, don't you?" "Oh, he's very nice, Basil; you will like him," said Wythie in her kindly way that explained Basil's confidence in her indifference to the new friend. While Rob, on the contrary, smiled provokingly and said: "I haven't met so nice a youth in many a day." "Not since we met our nicest of all boys," said Wythie quietly, for she had no liking for that sort of teasing. "What a blessing you are, Wythie!" ejaculated Bruce fervently. "Hester told me that Lester Baldwin admired Frances very much," said Prue. Her attempts at casual remarks were usually transparent and not very successful. "Shows his sense!" commented Bruce. "Frances deserves admiration," said Rob. "She is very nice, of course," said Prue with her most grown-up air, which always made her seem decidedly less than sixteen. "But I don't think Frances is striking at all; she is only just a little pretty." Basil and Bruce laughed and tweaked tall Prue's ear in the elder brotherly way of theirs which always tried her; it really was trying to have a B at each ear simultaneously. "Pretty Prudy!" they said together. The two older Rutherfords made it their business to check Prue's vanity, which they considered the only defect in any Grey girl. But Bartlemy stoutly defended her. "Don't you mind those two moles," he said, seeing Prue's cheeks reddening and her eyes dangerously near tears. "They don't know how artists feel about beauty. I can't imagine giving Frances more than a kindly thought when there's a tearing beauty in sight." "Bart, have some caramels; I made them to-day," interposed Rob, offering the boys the result of her labours. "Taffy's bad for the digestion, so I never have any." For in her turn Rob believed in checking Bartlemy's manifest desire to offer incense to Prue's handsome face; at least till she was long past sixteen, and somewhat less appreciative of that face herself. CHAPTER EIGHT ITS BLENDED ROMANCE