[CHAPTER I—THE GIRL ON THE STONE FENCE]

The roads were muddy, but the uplands and the winding sheep-paths across them had dried out under the caressing rays of the Spring sun and, with the budding things of so many delicate shades of green, the groves and pastures—all nature, indeed—were garbed in loveliness.

The group of girls had toiled up the ascent to an overhanging rock on the summit of a long ridge. Below—in view from this spot for some rods—wound the brown ribbon of road which they had been following until the upland paths invited their feet to firmer tread.

There were seven of the girls and every one of the seven—in her way—was attractive. But the briskest, and most eager, and most energetic, was really the smaller—a black-eyed, be-curled, laughing miss who seemed bubbling over with high spirits.

“Sit down—do, Bobby! It makes me simply ache to see you flitting around like a robin. And I’m tired to death!” begged one girl, who had dropped in weariness on the huge, gray rock.

“How can you expect to dance half the night, Jess Morse, and then start off on a regular walking ‘tower?’” demanded the girl addressed. “I didn’t go to Mabel Boyd’s party last night. As Gee Gee says, ‘I conserved my energies.’”

“I don’t believe anything ever tires you, Bobs,” said the girl who sat next to Jess—a vigorous, good looking maid with a very direct gaze, who was attractively gowned in a brown walking dress. “You are next door to perpetual motion.”

“How’d you know who I was next door to?” laughed Clara Hargrew, whom her friends insisted on calling “Bobby” because her father, Tom Hargrew, had nicknamed her that when she was little, desiring a boy in the family when only girls had been vouchsafed to him.

“And it is a fact that that French family who have moved into the little house next us are just as lively as fleas. They could be called ‘perpetual motion,’ all right.