Though Dorothy enjoyed the fun of the motor-boat and the roof-garden, and was always happy whether working or playing, yet perhaps she liked best of all, to lie in her hammock of a summer afternoon, and read or day-dream as she looked across the lake and watched the shadows on the distant hills.

On these occasions she felt sure she could be a poet, if she only knew how to express properly the fancies that danced through her brain.

Sometimes she would provide herself with a pencil and paper, but though she might write a line or a phrase, she never could get any further. The attempt to put her thoughts into words always produced a crude and stilted result which she knew instinctively was not poetry.

"If I only could learn the wordy part of it," she said to herself, "I am sure I have the right thoughts to put into a poem."

As she lay thinking about all this, one warm afternoon, she suddenly heard a voice say: "Is this a hotel, or isn't it?"

Dorothy jumped, and sitting up in her hammock, saw a strange lady, who had apparently just walked into the Domain.

The newcomer was of the aggressive type. She was short and stout, with a determined-looking face and a rather unattractive personal appearance. She wore a short, thick brown walking-skirt, and a brown linen shirt-waist, and heavy common-sense shoes. A plain brown felt hat was tied securely to her head by means of a brown veil knotted under her chin. She carried in one hand a small suit-case, and in the other a stout walking-stick.

Pretty Dorothy, in her fluffy summer muslin, looked at the stranger curiously a moment, and then, quickly recovering her poise, said politely: "Yes, this is a hotel. Are you looking for board?"

"No," said the stranger, "I am on a tramp. In fact I am a tramp, a lady-tramp. I am spending the whole summer walking about the country, enjoying myself."

"You are fond of walking, then?" said Dorothy, by way of making conversation.

"No, I am not," replied the lady-tramp; "I am doing it to reduce my flesh, and I am enjoying myself because I have succeeded. Success is always enjoyable."

"Yes, it is;" and Dorothy herself, felt a satisfaction in the thought that she too was succeeding in her summer's work.

"My name," went on her visitor, "is Lucille Dillingham. I tramp all day, and at night I stay at any hotel or farmhouse near which I happen to find myself. And so I want to stay at this hotel to-night, and if you will tell me where to find the proprietor, I won't trouble you further."

"I am the proprietor," said Dorothy, smiling, for she felt quite sure this statement would surprise Miss Lucille Dillingham.

"If that's a joke," was the response, "I can't see any particular fun in it. But no matter, I will inquire at the hotel myself."

"But truly, Miss Dillingham, I am the proprietor," and Dorothy stood up and put on the most dignified air of which she was capable. "I am Dorothy Dorrance, and this hotel is the property of my grandmother; but I am the acknowledged proprietor, and I shall be very glad to talk to you as such."

"You don't mean it, child! well if that is not the greatest I ever heard of! I am a great believer myself in the capability of women; but for a girl like you to run a hotel, is one ahead of my experience! Tell me all about it."

"There isn't much to tell," said Dorothy, who was not at all pleasantly impressed by the air and manner of the lady-tramp, and she couldn't help thinking to herself that the tramp was more in evidence than the lady. "However," she went on, courteously, "I live here with my grandmother, and my brother and two sisters. We have entire charge of this hotel, and we try to manage it in a way to satisfy our guests and ourselves. If you wish to stay for the night, Miss Dillingham, I am sure we can make you comfortable."

Miss Dillingham's eyes sparkled.

"I will do better than that," she cried; "I will stay all the time, and I will run the hotel for you. I am a splendid manager, and much better fitted for that sort of thing than a frivolous young girl like you. Oh, we'll get along famously!"

Dorothy began to wonder whether Miss Dillingham might not have escaped from some lunatic asylum, but she only said, "Thank you very much for your kind offer, but the hotel is running smoothly, and I really can't see the necessity for any change in the administration." Just at this moment Fairy came flying across the lawn, and flinging herself into the hammock, drew the sides of it together around her athletic little body, and with a peculiar kicking motion twisted herself and the hammock over and over in a sort of revolving somersault. Then still holding the sides she poked up her golden head, crowned with its big white bow, and gazed at the stranger.

"You must 'scuse me," she said, "for 'pearing so unsuspectedly. But I always come that way when I am in a hurry, and I'm always in a hurry."

"This is my sister Fairy, Miss Dillingham," said Dorothy, and Fairy bounced out of the hammock, and gracefully offered her hand to the stranger.

"How do you do?" she said. "I am very glad to see you, and I hope you have come to stay, 'cause it's time we had some new boarders. I am 'fraid we are running behind with our 'spenses."

Dorothy bit her lip to keep from laughing at Fairy's attitude of proprietorship, and Miss Dillingham stared at the child in blank amazement.

"Ah," she said, "is this another proprietor of this very remarkable hotel?"

"I'm not purporietor," said Fairy, "my sister is that; and my brother is clerk. I am just a general helper, and sometimes I help with the babies and the parrot."

Miss Dillingham seemed more and more bewildered, but she said, "I think you're all lunatics, and need somebody to look after you, and straighten you out. I shall stay here for the night, and look into this thing. It interests me extremely. Pray have you many boarders, and are they all as crazy as yourselves?"

Dorothy resented this question, but she kept her temper under control, and replied, "We have a number of boarders and we consider them quite sane, and they seem to think us so. If you wish to stay for the night, I will take you to the house at once and give you a room."

Miss Dillingham gave a sort of exasperated sniff, which Dorothy took to mean acquiescence, and they all started for the house.

Fairy walked backwards in front of the others, whirling all the way round, now and then, to make sure her path was clear.

"Did you really think we were crazy?" she asked, much interested in the idea.

"I did," replied Miss Dillingham, "and I am not yet convinced to the contrary."

Suddenly Fairy realized that this was another occasion for registration, and with one of her loudest shrieks at the thought, she darted towards the house and disappeared through the front door.

"Leicester!" she cried, and then with a prolonged yell, "Les—ter!" Leicester appeared by a jump through a window. "What's up?" he said.

"Oh, Less, there's a new boarder, and she's crazy, and she thinks we are, and she will want to register. Do get in the coop, quick!"

Grasping the situation, Leicester flung himself through the wicket door and behind the office desk. In a jiffy, he had assumed his clerkly air, and had opened the great register at the proper date.

When Dorothy appeared, a moment later, with Miss Dillingham, Leicester offered the pen to the newcomer with such a businesslike air that there seemed really no further room to doubt the responsibility of the hotel management. Then he rang a bell, and in a moment Mr. Hickox appeared, and with the deferential demeanor of a porter picked up Miss Dillingham's suit-case and stick.

Then Dorothy escorted the lady-tramp to her room, and returned a few moments later, to find the other children waiting for an explanation.

"Where did you catch it?" asked Leicester.

"What is it?" inquired Lilian.

"It's only for one night," explained Dorothy, laughing; "but, Less, she wants to run the hotel! She thinks we aren't responsible!"

It really seemed inevitable, so Lilian started the Dorrance groan. The others took it up, with their usual enthusiasm, and though it was of late a forbidden indulgence, they let themselves go for once, and the result was an unearthly din that brought grandma to the scene at once.

"Children!" she exclaimed. "You know you promised not to do that!"

"I know, grandma," explained Fairy, "but truly, this is a specialty occasion. You don't know what's happened, and what she wants to do."

But before Mrs. Dorrance could learn what had happened, the newly-registered guest herself, came flying down the staircase.

"What is the matter?" she cried; "is the house on fire? Has anybody been killed?"

"We must 'pollergize, Miss Dillingham," spoke up Fairy; "that's our Dorrance groan, it belongs to the family; we don't use it much up here, 'cause it wakes up the baby and otherwise irritations the boarders."

"I should think it would," put in Miss Dillingham, with conviction.

"Yes, it does," went on Fairy, agreeably; "and so you see, we don't 'low ourselves to 'spress our feelings that way very often. But to-day we had a purtickular reason for it, and so somehow we found ourselves a-groaning before we knew it."

Ignoring Fairy and her voluble explanation, Miss Dillingham turned to Mrs. Dorrance, and inquired with dignity: "Are you the lady of the house?"

"I am the owner of the house," said Grandma Dorrance, with her own gentle dignity, "and my granddaughter Dorothy is in charge of it. I must ask you to forgive the disturbance the children just made, and I think I can safely assure you it will not happen again."

Grandma Dorrance looked at her grandchildren, with an air of confidence that was responded to by a look of loving loyalty from each pair of laughing young eyes.

"I don't understand it at all," said Miss Dillingham; "but I will now return to my room, and take a short nap, if the house can be kept quiet. Then later, I have a proposition which I wish to lay before you, and which will doubtless prove advantageous to all concerned."

Miss Dillingham stalked majestically up the stairs again, and the Dorrances consulted as to what she could mean by her extraordinary proposition.

"I know," said Dorothy, "she wants to run the hotel. She informed me that she was much better qualified for such a business than I am."

"Oh, ho!" cried Leicester, "she is, is she! Well I like her nerve!"

"I wish she hadn't come," said Fairy, beginning to cry. "I don't want her to run this hotel, and Dorothy and all of us only be just boarders."

"Don't cry, Fairy, whatever you do," exclaimed Leicester. "If you put up one of your best crying-spells, it will make more noise than the groan did, and our new friend will come racing down-stairs again."

This suggestion silenced Fairy, and Leicester went on: "Do you really mean, Dot, that she proposed seriously to take charge of the Domain?"

"Yes, she did; and I think she expects to make a business proposition to that effect."

"All right, then; let's give her as good as she sends. Let's pretend that we entertain her proposition, and see what she has to say for herself."

"You'd better be careful," said Lilian, the practical, "sometimes people get caught in their own trap; and if you pretend you're going to let her have charge of affairs here, first thing you know she'll be at the head of things, and we will all be nowhere."

"Huh!" exclaimed Dorothy. "I'm not afraid of being dethroned by any lady-tramp that happens along. Just let her try it!"

"However she might frighten us singly," said Leicester, "I rather guess that the Dorrance family as a whole, can stand up for their rights."

"Don't be foolish, children," said grandma; "Dorothy must have misunderstood the lady. She couldn't have meant to make such a strange proposition at a moment's notice."

But apparently that is just what Miss Lucille Dillingham did mean. For that evening, after dinner, she gathered the Dorrance children round her in one of the small drawing-rooms, and talked to them in a straightforward if unacceptable way.

"Now don't say a word," she said, "until I have thoroughly explained my intention."

"We won't say a word, Miss Dillingham," said Fairy, "until you say your speech. But please say it plain, 'cause I'm the littlest one and sometimes I can't understand big words. 'Course I say big words myself, sometimes, but I understand my own, only other people's aren't always tellergibble to me. And so, you see I just have to——"

"That will do, Fairy," interrupted Leicester; "we've agreed not to do our talking until Miss Dillingham is through."

"In a few words, then," began Miss Dillingham, with the air of one who is satisfied of a foregone conclusion, "I want to say that in the few hours I have been here I have thoroughly acquainted myself with the conditions and possibilities of this hotel. And I have discovered that it is improperly managed by incompetent hands, and that it is, therefore, a lucky stroke of fortune for you that I happened along just now. I propose to assume entire charge of the hotel, give it a new name, establish new methods of management, and control absolutely the receipts and expenditures."

If the four Dorrances hadn't been possessed of a strong sense of humor, they would have been appalled by this extraordinary proposition. As it was, it struck them all as being very funny, and though with difficulty restraining a smile, Leicester inquired, with every appearance of serious interest, "And where do we come in?"

"You will be merely boarders," announced Miss Dillingham, "and can run and play as befits children of your ages. It may seem strange to you at first, that I should make you this generous proposition on so short an acquaintance, but it is my habit to make quick decisions, and I rarely regret them."

"Would you mind telling us your reasons for wanting to do this thing?" asked Lilian.

"My reasons are perhaps too subtle for young minds to understand. They are partly ethical, for I cannot make it seem right that a girl of sixteen should be so weighted with responsibility; and, too, I am actuated in part by motives of personal advantage. I may say the project seems to possess a pecuniary interest for me——"

"Miss Dillingham," said Fairy fixing her wide-open eyes on the lady's face, "'scuse me for interrupting, but truly I can't understand all those words. What does etherkle mean? and what is tercumerary? They are nice words and I would like to save them to use myself, if I knew a little bit what they meant."

"Never mind what they mean, Fairy," said Leicester; "and Miss Dillingham, it is not necessary for us to consider this matter any further. You have made your proposition, and I am sure that I speak for the four of us, when I say that we decline it absolutely and without further discussion."

When Leicester chose, he could adopt a tone and manner that seemed far more like a man, than like a boy of his years; and Miss Dillingham suddenly realized that she was not dealing with quite such childish minds as she had supposed.

"My brother is quite right," said Dorothy, and she, too, put on her most grown-up manner, which, by the way, was very grown-up indeed. "Although surprised at what you have said, we understand clearly your offer, and we respectfully but very positively decline it in toto."

As Dorothy confessed afterwards, she didn't know exactly what in toto meant, but she felt quite certain it came in appropriately just there.

Miss Dillingham seemed to think so too, or at any rate she was impressed by the attitude of the Dorrance young people, and without a further word, she rose and stalked away and they saw her no more that night. The next morning she was up early and after a somewhat curt leave-taking, she tramped away.

"I think I could have liked her," said Dorothy, thoughtfully, "if she hadn't tried to steal away from us our Dorrance Domain."