"We didn't have to go to Philadelphia after all," explained Bob, after greetings had been exchanged. "We found we could get off at New Brunswick and come back from there."

"Why didn't you find out that before telegraphing?" laughed Patty.

"Never once thought of it," said Bob, "You know the Barlows are not noted for ingenuity."

"Well, they're noted for better things than that," said Patty, as she affectionately squeezed Bumble's plump arm.

"We wouldn't have thought of it at all," said honest Bob, "if it hadn't been for Nan. She suggested it."

"Well, I was sent along with instructions to look after you two rattle-pated youngsters," said Nan, "and so I had to do something to live up to my privileges; and now, Bob, you look after the luggage, will you?"

"Let me help," said Kenneth. "Where are your checks, Miss Allen?"

"Here are the checks for the trunks, and there are three suit-cases; the one that hasn't any name on is mine, and you tell it by the fact that it has an extra handle on the end. I'm very proud of that handle; I had it put on by special order, and it's so convenient, and it is identification besides. I didn't want my name painted on. I think it spoils a brand-new suit-case to have letters all over it."

"We'll find them all right; come on, Barlow," said Kenneth, and the two young men started off.

They returned in a few moments with the three suit-cases, Bob bringing his own and his sister's, while Kenneth Harper carefully carried the immaculate leather case with the handle on the end. These were deposited in the Fairfield carriage. Patty and her guests were also tucked in, and they started for the house, while Kenneth followed on his wheel.

"Come over to-night," Patty called back to him, as they left him behind; and though his answer was lost in the distance, she had little doubt as to its tenor.

"What a nice young fellow!" said Nan. "Who is he?"

"He's the nephew of our next-door neighbour," said Patty; "and he's spending his vacation with his aunt."

"He's a jolly all-round chap," said Bob.

"Yes, he's just that," said Patty. "I thought you'd like him. You'll like all the young people here. They're an awfully nice crowd."

"I'm so glad to see you again," said Bumble, "I don't care whether I like the other young people or not. And I want to see Uncle Fred, too. I haven't seen him for years and years."

"Oh, he's one of the young people," said Patty, laughing; "he goes 'most everywhere with us. I tell him he's more of a boy than Ken."

As they drove up to the house, Bumble exclaimed with delight at the beautiful flowers and the well-kept appearance of the whole place.

"What a lovely home!" she cried. "I don't see how you ever put up with our tumble-down old place, Patty."

"Nonsense!" said Patty. "I had the time of my life down at the
Hurly-Burly last summer."

"Well, we're going to have the time of our life at Boxley Hall this summer, I feel sure of that," said Bob, as he sprang out of the carriage and then helped the others out.

"I hope you will," said Patty. "You are very welcome to Boxley Hall, and I want you just to look upon it as your home and conduct yourselves accordingly."

"Nan can do that," said Bumble, "but I'm afraid, if Bob and I did it, your beautiful home would soon lose its present spick-and-span effect."

"All right, let it lose," said Patty. "We'll have a good time anyhow. And now," she went on, as she took the guests to their rooms, "there'll be just about an hour before dinner time but if you get ready before that come down. You'll probably find me on the front veranda, if I'm not in the kitchen."

Bob was the first one to reappear, and he found Patty and her father chatting on the front veranda.

"How do you do, Uncle Fred?" he said. "You may know my name, but I doubt if you remember my features."

"Hello, Bob, my boy," said Mr. Fairfield, cordially grasping the hand held out to him. "As I last saw you with features of infantile vacancy, I am glad to start fresh and make your acquaintance all over again."

"Thank you, sir," said Bob, as he seated himself on the veranda railing. "I didn't know you as an infant, but I dare say you were a very attractive one."

"I think I was," said Mr. Fairfield; "at least I remember hearing my mother say so, and surely she ought to know."

Just then Bumble came out on the porch with her hair-ribbon in her hand.

"Please tie this for me, Patty," she said. "I cannot manage it myself, and get it on quick before Uncle Fred sees me."

"But I am so glad to see you, my dear Bumble," said Mr. Fairfield, "that even that piece of pretty blue ribbon can't make me any gladder."

Bumble smiled back at him in her winning way, and Patty tied her cousin's hair-ribbon with a decided feeling of relief that in all other respects Bumble's costume was tidy and complete.

"Where's Nan?" she inquired; "isn't she ready yet?"

"Why, it's the funniest thing," said Bumble, "I tapped at her door as I came by, but she told me to go on and not wait for her, she would come down in a few minutes."

Just as Pansy appeared to announce dinner, Nan did come down, and Patty stared at her in amazement. Bob whistled, and Bumble exclaimed:

"Well, for goodness gracious sakes! What are you up to now?"

For Nan, instead of wearing the pretty gown which Bumble knew she had brought in her suitcase, was garbed in the complete costume of a trained nurse. A white piquÉ skirt and linen shirt-waist of immaculate and starched whiteness, an apron with regulation shoulder-straps, and a cap that betokened a graduate of St. Luke's Hospital, formed her surprising, but not at all unbecoming, outfit.

Nan's roguish face looked very demure under the white cap, and she smiled pleasantly when Patty at last recovered her wits sufficiently to introduce her father.

"Nan," she said, "if this is really you, let me present my father; and, papa, this is supposed to be Miss Nan Allen, but I never saw her look like this before."

"I am very glad to meet you, Miss Allen," said Mr. Fairfield, "and though we are all apparently very well at present, one can never tell how soon there may be need of your professional services."

"I hope not very soon," said Nan, laughing; "for my professional knowledge is scarcely sufficient to enable me to adjust this costume properly."

"It seems to be on all right," said Patty, looking at it critically; "but where in the world did you get it? And what have you got it on for? We're not going to a masquerade."

"I put it on," said Nan, "because I couldn't help myself. I wanted to change my travelling gown, and when I opened my suit-case this is all there was in it, except some combs and brushes and bottles."

"Whew!" said Bob. "When I picked up that suit-case I wasn't quite sure I had the right one. You know I went back for it after we left the train at New Brunswick, and you said it was the only one in the world with a handle on the end."

"I thought it was," said Nan, "but it seems somebody else was clever enough to have an end-handle too, and she was a trained nurse, apparently."

"Many of the new suit-cases have handles on the end," said Mr. Fairfield, "though not common as yet I have seen a number of them. But just imagine how the nurse feels who is obliged to wear your dinner gown instead of her uniform."

"I hope she won't spoil it," exclaimed Bumble. "It was that lovely light blue thing, one of the prettiest frocks you own."

"I can imagine her now," said Bob: "she is probably bathing the brow of a sleepless patient, and the lace ruffles and turquoise bugles are helping along a lot. In fact, I think she's looking rather nice going around a sick-room in that blue bombazine."

"It isn't bombazine, Bob," said his sister; "it's beautiful, lovely light-blue chiffon."

"Well, beautiful, lovely light-blue chiffon, then; but anyway, I'm sure the nurse is glad of a chance to wear it instead of her own plain clothes."

"But her own plain clothes are not at all unpicturesque, and are very becoming to Miss Allen," said Mr. Fairfield. "But haven't your trunks come?" he added, as they all went out to dinner.

"No," said Bob; "Mr. Harper and I investigated the baggage-room, but they weren't there."

"Oh, call him Kenneth," said Patty. "You boys are too young for such formality."

"I may be," said Bob, "but he isn't. He's a college man."

"He's a college boy," said Patty; "he's only nineteen, and you're sixteen yourself."

"Going on seventeen," said Bob proudly, "and so is Bumble."

"Twins often are the same age," observed Mr. Fairfield, "and after a few years, Bob, you'll have to be careful how you announce your own age, because it will reveal your sister's."

"Pooh! I don't care," said Bumble. "I'd just as lieve people would know how old I am. Nan is twenty-two, and she doesn't care who knows it."

"You look about fifty in those ridiculous clothes," said Patty.

"Do I?" said Nan, quite unconcernedly. "I don't mind that a bit, but I don't think I can keep them at this stage of whiteness for many days. Can anything be done to coax our trunks this way?"

"We might do some telephoning after dinner," said Mr. Fairfield. "What is the situation up to the present time?"

"Why, you see it was this way," said Bumble. "When the carriage came to take us to the station, the trunks weren't quite ready, and mamma said for us to go on and she'd finish packing them and send them down in time to get that train or the next."

"And did they come for that train?"

"No, they didn't, and so, of course, they must have been sent on the next one; but even so, they ought to be here now, because, you know, we went on through and came back."

"But how did you get your checks if your trunks weren't put on the train?"

"Oh, the baggageman knows us," explained Bob, "and he gave us our checks and kept the duplicates to put on our trunks when they came down to the station. He often does that."

"Yes," said Bumble, "we've never had our trunks ready yet when the man came for them."

"Nan's was ready," put in Bob, who was a great stickler for justice, "but, of course, hers couldn't go till ours did. Oh, I guess they'll turn up all right."

They did turn up all right twenty-four hours later, but the exchange of suit-cases was not so easily effected.

However, after more or less correspondence between Nan and the nurse who owned the uniform, the transfer was finally made, and Nan recovered her pretty blue gown, which certainly bore no evidence of having been worn in a sickroom.

"But I bet she wore it, all the same," said Bob. "She probably neglected her patient and went to a party that night just because she had the frock."