"And so 'tis a boat--some kinds of schooners," Harold Day soothed the boy quickly, rising to his feet, and putting a friendly arm about the small heaving shoulders. "Come on, son, let's you and I go over to the house. I've got a dandy picture of a prairie schooner over there, and we'll hunt it up and see just what it looks like." And with a ceremonious "Good day, ladies!" and an elaborate flourish of his hat toward the Happy Hexagons, Harold drew the boy more closely into the circle of his arm and turned away. It was the signal for a general breaking up of the club meeting. Cordelia, only, looked a little anxiously after the two boys, as she complained: "Harold never tells a thing that he knows about Texas, and he must know a lot of things, even if he did leave there when he was a tiny little baby!" "Don't you fret, Cordy," retorted Tilly. (Cordelia did not like to be called "Cordy," and Tilly knew it.) "Harold Day will talk Texas all right after Genevieve gets back. Besides, you couldn't expect a boy to join in with a girls' club like us, just as if he were another girl--specially as he isn't going to Texas, anyway." "Well, all he ever does is just to sit and look bored--except when Tilly gets in some of her digs," chuckled Bertha. "Glad I'm good for something, if nothing but to stir up Harold, then," laughed Tilly, as she turned away to answer Elsie Martin's anxious: "Tilly, what color is the new dress? Is it red?" It was the next day that the letter came from Genevieve. Cordelia brought it to the club meeting that afternoon; and so full of importance and excitement was she that for once she quite forgot to open the meeting with her usual ceremony. "Girls, girls, just listen to this!" she began breathlessly. The Happy Hexagons opened wide their eyes. Never before had they seen the usually placid Cordelia like this. "Why, Cordelia, you're almost girlish!" observed Tilly, cheerfully. Cordelia did not seem even to hear this gibe. "It's a letter from Genevieve," she panted, as she hurriedly spread open the sheet of note paper in her hand. "Dear Cordelia, and the whole Club," read Cordelia, excitedly. "I came up yesterday from New Jersey with the Hardings for two days in New York. I have been to see the animals at the Zoo all the afternoon, and I'm going to see the Hippodrome this evening. That sounds like another animal but it isn't one, they say. It's a place all lights and music and crowds, and with a stage 'most as big as Texas itself, with scores of real horses and cowboys riding all over it.