She wore a light jacket, meant for the breezy rocks. Here, where the heat quivered dizzily over the white sand, it oppressed her. But she did not take it off. When one is miserable, one may as well be as miserable as possible.

At the top of the hill was a parting of the ways. Rebecca firmly chose the road that led away from home and the sea, and pursued it doggedly.

Now, indeed, she was in a strange country. Tall elderberry thickets hemmed in the road, which went meandering, houseless, into the far distance. Rebecca's eyes, which were big and solemn for her little brown face, went roving nervously over the unfamiliar world. In practice she didn't know that she liked being lost; it gave one such an empty feeling inside. Crickets shrilled insistently in the hedges. It was an infinitely lonesome sound. But if Rebecca's heart misgave her, her little legs carried her valiantly on her way.

Of a sudden from the thicket there flashed out a great scarlet butterfly. Rebecca knew him instantly for a Red Admiral, for Cousin Tom had one in a glass box. Now Red Admirals are rare, and more to be desired than gold, yea, than much fine gold. Rebecca snatched her broad hat from her head and gravely gave him chase. The butterfly did as butterflies do. Coolly contemptuous of his weakarmed, thin-legged pursuer, he skimmed nonchalantly from bush to bush, evading the leghorn by a hundredth part of an inch. After him panted Rebecca, stern determination expressed in every line of her tense little body, and in the straightened bow of her resolute mouth.

Presently, rising from the top of an elder bush, the Admiral circled easily for a moment, and then sailed carelessly over the hedge. Clapping her hat on her head, Rebecca prepared to follow him. But behind the thicket was a high rail fence. Rebecca was hot and blown, and she didn't like rail fences. She hesitated. The Admiral brushed her cheek with a brilliant wing, just to show her how easy it would be to catch him. Rebecca straight way mounted the wobbling rails, and dropped in a weak huddle on the other side. Then as she straightened herself, the Red Admiral was forgotten in the amazing sight which met her eyes.

From her feet the ground fell away rap

idly in a long, grassy slope. Below, in a delicious hollow, lay a little blue pond, holding in its midst a bit of an island shaded by one gigantic weeping willow. The high bluff and the thick elder hedge screened the whole from the highway.

The pride of the discoverer swelled the little heart of Rebecca Theodora. Not Columbus, not Balboa, ever tasted purer joy than this. Her very own! A really, truly secret! All the woes of her short life were outweighed by this one moment's bliss.

All the Crusoe blood in Rebecca's veins tingled as she contemplated that island. Her feet twitched to tread its enchanted soil. But how to get there? Rebecca worked her way down the slope through thistles and embattled mulleins till she stood upon the very brink of her new possession. On the dark surface of the pond floated two water-soaked logs, one widely crotched. That one looked quite capable of bearing passengers. Two or three slender poles, floating along with the logs, suggested that this Columbus, too, had had an Amerigo Vespucci. But Rebecca saw them only as potential paddles. Fishing one out, she carefully coaxed the crotched log inshore and essayed to board it. Forked as it was, it made a fairly seaworthy craft. But Rebecca knew nothing of the principle of the catamaran. The log rolled so alarmingly at the first touch that she was glad to cast herself bodily ashore. Plainly, standing on that log was out of the question.

Rebecca pondered. If one sat astride the thing it might be safer. But that would necessitate dipping one's feet in the water. Crouching down, she laboriously unbuttoned one little shoe and pulled off a short black stocking. But the notion of hazarding her pink toes in that gloomy water, peopled by who knew what fearsome creatures, gave her pause. With a big sigh she abandoned all hope of reaching the island that afternoon, drew on the discarded shoe and stocking, and set about reconnoitering the margin of the pond. A poet might have found flaws in Rebecca's watery paradise. Floating on the far side of the island was something which looked rather like an abandoned mortarbox, and by peering down into the brown depths of the pond one might see dim shapes of wheels, and the glint of something not unlike a tomato-can. But Rebecca wrapped

these untoward objects in romance as an oyster veils intrusive sand particles in iridescent pearl. Only the lengthening of the shadows, telling of supper-time near at hand, drove her from the water's edge.

Considering that she was irrevocably lost, Rebecca had surprisingly little difficulty in finding her way back to the hotel. Indeed it was not until she beheld the faithless Seth perched on the veranda rail that she so much as remembered she was lost. Her soul was set on weightier matters than the avenging of petty snubs. While day lasted she went about in a blissful waking dream, which merged itself at bedtime into the long, long dream of happy night.

Next morning, bright and early, Rebecca stole away to the hollow, this time armed with a pair of diminutive rubber boots. The forked log lay accommodatingly inshore. Rebecca grasped a pole, and with her heart in her mouth bestrode the careening craft, one shining rubber boot dipped in the water on each side. One bold shove and the shore was left behind. It was but a few feet from the mainland to the island. But to this unskilled mariner it seemed no small voyage. Rebecca's strokes were feeble; her pole slipped on the slimy stones; and every now and then a sudden drop in the bottom level threatened to precipitate her bodily into the pond.

Disembarkation was no less serious. The first pressure of her foot on the shore sent the log off into deep water, and it was only by dint of grasping the long grass with both hands and crawling off on all fours, that she finally effected a landing.

The island proved to be worth all the pains of the voyage. It was large enough to accommodate a whole family of shipwrecked mariners. Its limited coastline ran out into fascinating little capes and bays, which set Rebecca to work at once devising names for them. A stiff breeze swept the pond into crisp little ripples which clucked and cooed enchantingly against the grassy shore. The big willow let the sunlight sift down brokenly through its drooping branches, and its great looping roots made a series of tempting armchairs all about its foot. Rebecca dropped into one of these and let her imagination have its way.

No thought of sharing her discovery crossed Rebecca's mind. Unsocial little

body that she was, she had little in common with the rollicking children at the Cammock, and she had no desire to have them invade the seclusion of her island. There was only one person in the world whom she would have liked to take into the secret— Mr. Seth. But that was obviously impossible in view of his late disloyalty. So her plans were laid for solitary occupation.

First she must devise a place to store treasure. Otherwise where was the use of a desert island? Did not the Swiss Family Robinson gather together the salvage of the wreck, to wit: five kegs of gunpowder, as much sailcloth and cordage as they could load upon the raft, such supply of provisions as had not been spoiled by the sea, and many other things which they foresaw would be of use? Assuredly there must be properties.

Rebecca had brought with her, to begin with, a little bag of beach treasure-scallop-shells of many colors, gold and silver jingle shells, and a handful of clam-shells. By dint of much scouring with sea-sand and one's own long-suffering thumb, these clam-shells could be made to yield faint tints of pink, or green, or silvery gray. Clam-shells, moreover, make trusty spades. Here under the biggest and highest arched of the willow roots might be hollowed out a cave the size of one's two fists, or maybe even as big as one's head. That was obviously the first duty of Rebecca. and the sharp little clam-shell went valiantly to work. Before the sun stood overhead the "cave" was an accomplished fact. Lined with the reddest of the scallop-shells it made a royal hiding place, if a small one. Rebecca felt that at last she had something to live for.

She

From that day forward she carried on a dual existence, a perfunctory one at the Cammock, where one must dine and sup and be bathed and put to bed; and another real one on her enchanted island. Day by day she carried there such things as she held dearest: a china dog with one leg and an eighth of a tail, two empty pill bottles, several strings of leathery whelk's eggs which rattled when one shook them, a store of paper lace in a wooden box with a lid that opened and shut, and other things too numerous to mention. Among them she lived a life as mythical as a dryad's and as happy.

No one suspected her secret. She went about with a face as non-committal as a sphinx. Her mother supposed her safe with Seth Grosvenor, of whose defection she had not been informed. And dissimulation which stopped on the righteous side of lying kept Rebecca's daily pilgrimages from the knowledge of the other children. at the hotel.

A week passed, and the little secret remained safe. Then something happened to make the solitude of desert islands seem rather less desirable. Rebecca was busy under the willow one morning, when a great white horse, turned loose in the hollow, came ambling down to the pond to drink. Rebecca had seen him once or twice afar off. But to-day he splashed bodily into the water, placing the trembling little adventuress between the devil and the deep sea. If there was anything Rebecca dreaded, it was a wild horse. She scarcely breathed till the great beast had stopped his noisy guzzling and taken himself off. It was with acute misgivings that she made the home voyage and left the haunted hollow. She feared she should never have the courage to enter it again alone.

Up to that time Rebecca had turned a cold shoulder on all Seth's attempts at reconciliation. Masculine bungler that he was, Seth regarded her as a superior sort of toy to amuse oneself with when it pleased one, and

to be put by when the fancy suited. He liked her because she was shy and quaint and exquisitely teasable. But he hadn't a suspicion how much real woman there was tucked away in her little personality. Underestimating her affection, he underestimated her resentment to his cost.

That night the whim seized him to take his sulking playmate by storm. Coming quietly behind her with his bicycle, he swung her suddenly to his handle-bars, mounted, and was spinning down the road with her before she could open her mouth to protest.

Like all women, Rebecca worshipped a masterful man. So though she turned her head away, and pretended to be deaf to Seth's extravagant protestations of remorse, she was soon laughing in spite of herself and the field was lost.

The sun was just dipping into a bank of cloud when Seth turned the wheel homeward, and, as fate would have it, chose the road which led by the secret hollow. Rebecca's heart was large toward penitent Mr. Seth. Besides, there was the dreadful wild horse. Rebecca told him all. Sworn to eternal secrecy, he was even permitted to enter her paradise.

The hollow lay in deep shadow, save for the tremulous crimson of the water, lit by the glowing sky. At the top of the bluff the two sat down and made up their differences most handsomely. Not till the pond glowed

to her homesick soul. Scarcely waiting to kiss mother and greet old friends, she scampered off to the pond in the hollow.

Behold! two bicycles leaned against the elder-thicket. With a sudden fear at her heart Rebecca pushed through the bushes and mounted the fence. It was too true! Her secret playground had been invaded. A broad-shouldered youth in tweeds was helping a graceful girl to balance herself on Rebecca's rolling log. Rebecca rubbed her eyes and looked again. Surely it could not be! Yes, it was, Seth Grosvenor, and that odious Polly Porter!

Poor outraged Rebecca crouched among the low bushes, her cheeks burning, her little heart hot within her, and watched the

profanation of her paradise. Miss Polly had much ado to keep her balance on the log. She shrieked prettily and clutched Seth's arm when the log rolled, and then laughed musically at her own cowardice. Rebecca's breath came in cruel little gasps. Verily her gods had fallen! Seth's faithful vows of fealty and friendship, his pledge of secrecy deep as death, not yet a sennight cold upon his lips-where now were they? Where now Rebecca's free-given. loyalty and trust? All sacrificed to make Miss Polly's holiday! Oh, bitter, bitter day! In the ecstasy of her wretchedness Rebecca very nearly let a sob escape her. Seth's strong poling brought the logboat swiftly to the island's edge. He