It would be difficult to decide which position was the more enviable, the fallen idol's or that of his erstwhile worshipers. The latter left Rose Cottage swayed by two emotions, disappointment and indignation; in twelve hours disappointment alone was left; in twenty-four hours disappointment was succeeded by a desire to talk the matter over. Not that they were weakening, far from it, but they wanted to look at the case squarely—and they met at Ethel's to look at it!

"I think you are rather hard upon May—I mean Gay," said Ethel. "After praising him to the skies you suddenly turn round and drag him through the dust. He never said he wasn't a boy; all he did was to put on skirts, answer to his sister's name, and act like a boy all the time. We deceived ourselves."

"He did it all under false colors," Lyman said stoutly.

"Didn't you go into the orchard under false colors?" retorted Ethel. "But when you met Gay he overlooked that and made friends with you, and you, at the first chance, desert him."

"You don't understand it, Ethel," began Ned. "It really wasn't the thing, you know."

"I understand it as well as you do," replied Ned's sister. "And you don't always do the right thing."

"None of us do the right thing all the time," said Will, "but——"

"There isn't any but about it," cried Ethel. "If you won't accept a but in Gay's case you have no right to offer one in your own."

"Think how he bore the pain of his broken arm," said Julia. "And you said yourselves that he won the ball game for you. And you boys wouldn't have been treated so well by us if it hadn't been for Gay's splendid manners the day of the party."

The boys were somewhat affected by this argument, but not greatly.

"He put up a job on us," said Lyman, stubbornly.

"We find it hard to forgive Gay because we thought he couldn't do wrong," said slow Robert. "We thought he was immense, and when we found out that he was a little worse than most of us it was like a crack side of the head."

"Did he ever do anything that wasn't splendid except to fool you about being a girl?" Ethel asked.

"His aunts forgave him," urged Julia gently.

"And General Haines forgave Gay's sister, and he had as much right to be unforgiving as you have," Ethel said.

"Nobody is unforgiving," muttered Lyman. "But I thought that he was twice as good as the minister or anybody, and——"

"He always behaved like a gentleman," interrupted Ned.

"Yes, that's where the laugh comes in," Will said.

"You may be as hateful as you like," announced impetuous Ethel. "Julia and I have made up our minds to go to Rose Cottage and try to make it up with Gay."

There was some little controversy. Robert was on the girls' side and the others soon followed his lead. Lyman, who had been fondest of the youthful impostor, was the last to forgive him, but in the end he signified his willingness to accompany the girls. They went on their way with some feeling of shyness, which increased as they approached the house, and deepened still further when they failed to descry either May or Gay on the porch.

"Suppose he is stand-offish," said Ethel gloomily.

"I really can't go up there and ring the bell," said Will, whose courage was beginning to ooze away.

There was no need to ring the bell; Gay and May had seen them coming, and together they went to meet the approaching regiment, wondering if it came with peaceful or hostile intent.

"How do you do?" said Gay, determined to do his share of the peacemaking.

"How do you do?" the group answered in one voice.

Then there was an awkward pause.

"We have come——" began Robert, "to——"

"Oh, Gay, we are so sorry!" interrupted warm-hearted Ethel.

"So am I, and ashamed, too," Gay replied, soberly. "May and I talked it over last night and we decided that although we didn't mean to we had done a lot of deceiving. It might have been worse, I suppose, still my sister went through a great deal, and here is my broken arm and all on account of our masquerading. If you can excuse me for being a fraud I'm sure I can excuse you for being mad about it when you found it out. I was ashamed very often, although I tried to think it was a lark. I am the one to ask pardon."

What generous words these seemed to the boys and girls! They had never made any real mistake; Gay was worthy of their admiration.

"Boy or girl; Gay or May, you're a brick," cried Lyman. And he voiced the sentiment of all.

"I knew if you really liked Gay it would come out all right," May said, with a bright smile.

"We really like him, and you, too," Ethel said, warmly.

"If you like me you must like her for we are just the same as one," said Gay, whose good spirits had returned.

Just then Aunt Celia, who surmised that a treaty of peace had been arranged, invited them all in to have lemonade and little Queen's cakes. She knew, wise aunt that she was, that nothing cements a treaty like good cheer, and that many a controversy has been buried out of sight in a harmless merry-making. After much laughter and lively talk the boys and girls went away, satisfied with themselves and with Gay. When they were alone May said, soberly,—

"It hasn't been all harm. I have learned to depend upon myself and I should not have done so if I had had you to depend upon."

"I have learned never again to try to be a girl, even in fun!" said Gay, looking ruefully at his arm.

"There is one thing that troubles me, Gay; just what mother will think of us," said May.

For once Gay said nothing in reply. "What would mother think?" It was a question that he could not answer.