"Because--because," she stammered, "it is like--like something--oh! I can't just tell you right now, Doris. Perhaps I will some day." And Doris said no more, but put the curious remark away in her mind to wonder over. "It's something connected with her secret--that I'm sure!" thought Doris. "I do wish she felt like telling me, but until she does, I'll try not even to think about it." But, all unknown to Doris, the time of her final testing, in Sally's eyes, was rapidly approaching. Sally herself, however, had known of it and thought over it for a week or more. About the middle of June, there came every year to the "Bluffs" a certain party of young folks, half a dozen or more in number, with their parents, to stay till the middle of July, when they usually left for the mountains. They were boys and girls of about Doris's age or a trifle older, rollicking, fun-loving, a little boisterous, perhaps, and on the go from morning till night. They spent their mornings at the ocean bathing-beach, their afternoons steaming up and down the river in the fastest motor-boat available, and their evenings dancing in the hotel parlor when they could find any one to play for them. Sally had known them by sight for several years, though never once, in all that time, had they so much as deigned to notice her existence. "If Doris deserts me for them," she told herself, "then I'll be mighty glad I never told her my secret. Oh, I do wonder what she'll do when they come!" And then they came. Sally knew of their arrival that evening, when they rioted down to the Landing to procure the fastest launch her father rented. And she waited, inwardly on tenterhooks of anxiety, for the developments of the coming days. But, to her complete surprise, nothing happened. Doris sought her company as usual, and for a day or two never even mentioned the presence of the newcomers. At last Sally could bear it no longer. "How do you like the Campbells and Hobarts who are at your hotel now?" she inquired one morning. "Why, they're all right," said Doris indifferently, feathering her oars with the joy of a newly-acquired accomplishment. "But you don't seem to go around with them," ventured Sally uncertainly. "Oh, they tire me to death, they're so rackety!" yawned Doris. "I like fun and laughing and joking and shouting as well as the next person--once in a while. But I can't stand it for steady diet. It's a morning, noon and night performance with them. They've invited me to go with them a number of times, and I will go once in a while, so as not to seem unsociable, but much of it would bore me to death. By the way, Sally, Mother told me to ask you to come to dinner with us tonight, if you care to. She's very anxious to meet you, for I've told her such a lot about you. Do you think your mother will allow you to come?" Sally turned absolutely scarlet with the shock of surprise and joy this totally unexpected invitation caused her.