There was a “do-as-you-please time” after dinner down on the lawn for an hour or so, and then the boys were mustered in the bathroom and initiated as to how to manipulate a tooth-brush, in a tooth-cleaning drill, Nathalie having supplied herself with three new brushes in anticipation of this procedure. Sheila, who was not one of the drillers,—only three brushes having been provided,—looked with envious eyes upon this performance, and, when Danny had finished, in a plaintively aggrieved voice complained to their young teacher that he would not let her have his brush so that she could clean her teeth, too. Explanations were now in order. Nathalie smiling amusedly at the idea of loaning a tooth-brush, and then they were all made as presentable as possible, considering their ragged clothes, which had begun to prey upon Mrs. Page’s mind, as well as Nathalie’s. But the clothes part was something that had not presented itself to the girl when she had planned the boys’ coming, and she was at a loss to remedy the trouble. Certainly something must be done to do away with Tony’s old velveteen embroidered vest, his greatest treasure, and Jean’s soiled white shirt, which seemed to be the only one he possessed. Danny’s clothes, although they had been queerly darned and glaringly patched, and were miles too small for him, _were clean_, and he did have a change of underclothing, to Nathalie’s relief. However, the general shabbiness of the boys’ apparel had not affected their merry spirits, the girl decided, as she sat knitting on the veranda, and heard the happy, joyous voices that floated up from the lawn, as they played leap-frog, ran races, and turned handsprings. Even Jean, caught by the contagion of the moment, turned a somersault, to her breathless amazement. She was beginning to realize what Mrs. Van Vorst meant when she spoke of what the glorious wonders of these mountains would mean to the half-fed, sickly little waifs of humanity from the East Side of New York. Yes, it meant a new world, with no more squalid, stifling two-by-two rooms, or damp, moldy cellars. No more nauseating smells, odors from the backyard garbage-can, the rattlety-bang of heavy trucks and milk-wagons, or the jarring creak of the Elevated. For, as Sheila expressed it, they were in a “big green world, with high blue walls, with flower stars a-peepin’ at ’em from the grass, and little teeny birds a-singin’ and rockin’ their babies to sleep in tall trees, that nodded to ’em with a swishy whisper.” Suddenly the serenity of Nathalie’s cogitations received a shock, as a horrible swear-word came, no, not floating, but yelling, its way across the green. The girl jumped up and rushed down under the trees, to see Tony, with his soft, appealing ways, and Danny, with the blue eyes that she had already begun to trust for the frankness of their gaze, rolling on the lawn, locked in a vice-like grip, as they pommeled and pounded each other in a way that made Nathalie gasp.