"Come on, Les!" called a voice from the lingering group she had left. "Here's Alf. He's going to treat us all. Ho! A-a-lf!" The young ladies of Algonquin, had lived in such close proximity to each other from childhood that a playmate could always be summoned even from the other end of the town by a clarion call, and they had never seen any reason for changing their convenient method when long skirts and piled-up hair might have been supposed to demand a less artless manner. But then every one shouted across blocks, and besides, every one knew that Afternoon Tea Willie just dearly loved to be yelled at. He whirled about now, waved his hat, and came hurrying back, with the peculiar jerky irregular motion of his feet, that always marked his movements. "Hurrah, Leslie!" called her companions again. "Coming!" she cried. "So sorry you can't come," she added, turning to Roderick, "but we'll give you another invitation." She looked disappointed, and a little inclined to pout, but she waved her hand as she ran down the steps and joined the group of lace and flowers now fluttering down the side-walk towards the ice cream parlour. "Leslie's made a new conquest," cried a tall girl with flashing black eyes. "He seemed frantically anxious to come with you, my dear. I don't see how you got rid of him." "Who is he, Les?" cried another. "If it's a new young man come to this girl-ridden town you simply have got to pass him round and introduce him." "Why, he's Lawyer Ed's new partner, you goosie," cried a dozen voices, for it was inexcusable for any young lady not to know all about Lawyer Ed's business. "A lawyer, how perfectly lovely!" cried a plump little girl with pink cheeks and dancing eyes. "It's such a relief to see some one beside bank boys. I'm going to ask his advice about suing Afternoon Tea Willie for breach of promise. What's his name, Leslie?" "Why, his name's Roderick McRae," cried the young lady with the black eyes. "I remember when he used to go to school in a grey homespun suit with the hay sticking all over it. He's the son of old Angus McRae who used to bring our cabbage and lettuce to the back door!" "Mercy!" the plump little girl gave a shriek. "Where in the world did you pick him up, Leslie?" The girl whirled about and faced her companions, her eyes blazing, her checks red. "I didn't pick him up at all!" she cried hotly. "He picked me up the other night, out of the lake over by Breezy Point, where Fred Hamilton upset me out of his canoe. And if Roderick McRae hadn't come along I'd have been drowned. So now!" It had all come out in a rush. She had fully intended to shield Fred. But she could not see her preserver scoffed at by those Baldwin girls. Immediately there was a chorus of enquiries and exclamations. Afternoon Tea Willie was overcome with distress and apologised for not being there. Old Angus McRae's son immediately became a hero.