"But there is no one for you to telegraph to if Papa and I are with you, dear Cousin, is there?" asked Billie ingenuously. Miss Campbell's expression softened. Nothing pleased her so much as for Billie to make one family of the three. The young cousin had become such a fixture in her home that she had grown quite jealous of Duncan Campbell's possessive airs with his daughter. "One would think she really belonged to him more than to me," she would exclaim at such times, with some unreasonableness it must be admitted. But it was plain that the little spinster's resolutions against camping were beginning to crumble. "We are not to eat on the ground, then, or drink coffee from tin cups, or sleep in our clothes, or be bitten to death by mosquitoes, and finally exterminated by wild animals?" Billie laughed joyously. She knew by these extravagant remarks that her cousin had been won over. "None of those things," she cried. "We are to lead a comfortable, beautiful rustic life, and I know you'll just love it. There are lakes, cousin, exquisite, beautiful little gems of lakes; and trails all through the pine forests, and the walking isn't a bit difficult----" "Khaki skirts, did you say?" "Yes, and sneakers." "What are they, child?" "Rubber-soled shoes to keep you from slipping." Miss Campbell sighed. "And at my age!" she said aloud, answering some unspoken thought. "Tell your father I accept, but it's the last straw, and I may never see my comfortable old home again." Billie did not pause to disprove this dejected statement. She kissed her relative with the wild abandon of eighteen, rushed from the room and was down the stairs in a breathlessly short space of time. "She's going! She's going!" she cried, rushing into the drawing-room, where her three friends were anxiously awaiting news, and Mr. Campbell, almost as anxious himself, was pacing the floor, his hands thrust deep into his pockets. "Good work, little daughter!" he said, pausing in his walk. "I knew you could win her over if anybody could, although last night I was afraid we hadn't the ghost of a show. She was dead set against it. The word 'camp' alone seemed to make her wild." "But, you see, she thought it was tents and flies and mosquitoes and tin cups." Mr. Campbell smiled. "I think we won't tell her any more, now that she has made up her mind. We'll give her a little surprise. Call the camp a log hut and let it go at that." "Now, about clothes----" began Nancy Brown, and her friends all smiled. "Well, one must have clothes, even on a camping trip. Don't you think a blue corduroy would be attractive, with a touch of coral pink in the silk tie, say; and high russet walking boots--the kind that lace, you know----" "They must have rubber soles," put in Billie, "no matter what the tops are." "And a straw hat in the natural color, with a brim that droops slightly, and a pheasant's tail feather, slightly at one side----"