To the youthful native of Algonquin an upset into the lake was not a serious matter; and to the young lady and gentleman swimming about their capsized craft, the affair, up to a few moments previous, had been rather a good joke. How it had happened that two such expert canoeists as Leslie Graham and Fred Hamilton could fall out of anything that sailed the water, was a question those who knew them could not have solved. They had been over to Mondamin Island to gather golden-rod and asters for a party the young lady was to give the next evening. They had been paddling merrily homeward, the space between them piled with their purple and golden treasure, and as they paddled they talked, or rather the young lady did, for where Miss Leslie Graham was, no one else had much chance to say anything. "There's the _Inverness_ at the dock," she said, when they came within view of the town. "Aunt Elinor's boarder must have come on it, the girl that's going to teach in Miss Hasting's room." "I thought your aunt said you weren't to call her a boarder." The girl put her paddle across the canoe and leaned back with a burst of laughter. She was handsome at any time, but particularly so when she laughed, showing a row of perfect teeth and a merry gleam in her black eyes. "Poor old Auntie! Isn't she a joke? She's scared the family escutcheon of the Armstrongs will be sullied forever with the blot of a boarder on it. Auntie Bell is nearly as bad too. My! I hope they won't expect us to trot her around in our set." "Why?" asked young Mr. Hamilton. He was always interested in new girls. "Too many girls in it already. You know that, Fred Hamilton." "Well, I say, I believe you're right, Les," he ventured, but with some hesitation. He was a rather nice young fellow, with the inborn idea that, theoretically, there couldn't be too many girls, but there was no denying the fact that Algonquin seemed to have more than her fair share. Only, Leslie was always so startlingly truthful, it was sometimes rather disconcerting to hear one's half-formed thoughts spoken out incisively as was her way. "There does seem to be an awful swarm of them," he admitted reluctantly, "especially since the Harrisons and the Wests came to town. I danced twenty-five times without drawing breath at Polly's last spree, and never twice with the same girl. Where did she pick 'em all up, anyway?"