Harry was ready to go over to the cottage at eight the next morning, but Leslie declared it a ridiculous hour to call.

“Call!” cried Harry.  “Who’s going to make a prim old call, I’d like to know?  S’pose a fellow is going to lug a card case just to go and play with Rose?”

“Of course not,” said Leslie, “but even if we are just going over to the cottage to play, we’d not care to get there when she’s eating breakfast.”

“Well, I guess there’s no chance of doing that, Leslie.  Look at the clock.  It is after eight now, and we’re still at table.”

“I’ll go over with you at nine,” Leslie said, and when the clock struck nine, she found him just outside the door, his shrill whistle having told her where to find him.

“Come on!” he cried.  “It’s nine, and if you won’t come with me now I’ll go over to see Rose without you.”

“Well, I’ll have to go back now,” Leslie said, and turning, she ran across the hall, and up the stairway, laughing as she went.

“Good-bye!” shouted Harry, and off he sped, thinking it a great joke on Leslie that he should keep his word, and because she was causing the delay, run off to the cottage instead of waiting for her.

Leslie, never dreaming but that he was waiting on the walk just outside the door, wondered that he did not whistle or call to her to hurry.

She had gone back for a book that she intended to give Rose, and in her haste she could not at once find it.

At last she saw a bit of its cover beneath a mass of lace and ribbon, in the corner of the drawer where she had placed it for safe keeping, and catching it up, flew down the stairway and out upon the porch.

For a moment she paused, wondering where Harry might be, when a merry shout made her look up.

Away up the avenue, just opening the cottage gate, was Harry, and even as she looked, he disappeared behind the tall shrubbery in the garden.

“Well, isn’t he great?” Leslie said, as she started to run.

Rose and Harry were just behind a tall shrub that overhung the gateway, and as Leslie pushed the gate open they sprang forward in a fine attempt to startle her, but she only laughed.

“You couldn’t make me jump,” she said, “because I saw a bit of Rose’s pink dress between the branches, and Harry moved his head so that I saw his yellow hair.”

“Why didn’t you speak, and tell us you knew where we were hiding?” Harry asked, a nice bit vexed that Leslie had not “jumped.”

“I thought you ought to have the fun of springing out at me, after you’d hidden so nicely,” Leslie said.

“Better luck next time,” said Rose, and together they ran around behind the cottage to learn if the little brook was as clear, and as rippling as when Rose, in the early Summer, had sailed her little boat upon it.

“The brook is here!” cried Harry.  “It hasn’t run away yet.”

A ragged little chap now approached them, but they did not see him.  They were kneeling on the bank and looking at the reflections in a little pool where no ripple stirred the surface.

The comical little fellow might have kept away from them had they been facing him, but as their backs were toward him, he felt quite brave.

He was a droll looking urchin.  His trousers evidently belonged to an older brother, as the legs had been rolled over and over in an effort to make them short enough so that he might walk without treading upon them.  His blouse must have been the property of the same person, for the sleeves had received the same treatment as the trouser legs, that he might be able to use his hands.  Upon his head rested an old straw hat.  A big hole in the crown permitted a sprout of red hair to pop out, and a pair of shoes, not mates, completed his odd costume.  He continued to approach until he stood within a few feet of Harry Grafton, and then he paused, as if wishing that one of the group might turn, and greet him.

With chubby hands clasped behind his back he waited.  He was evidently in no hurry, but after a time he became impatient.

“Hello!” he said, and Harry turned.

“Hello, little chap!  Who are you?” Harry asked.

Ignoring the question, the small boy eyed Harry for a second, then he lisped: 

“Where’th Gyp?  Ma thaid:  ‘Find Gyp.’”

“Are you Gyp’s little brother?” Harry asked.

The small head in the big hat nodded.

“What’s your name?” inquired Harry.

“Motheth,” said the child.

“Moses!” cried Harry.  “You must be wise.  Are you?”

“I do’ no’, but I got to find Gyp, for Ma thaid I wouldn’t have no dinner unleth I found him, an’ I want my dinner now.”

“And yet you haven’t found Gyp,” Harry said.  “Well, I saw him a little while ago at work on the lawn over at Captain Atherton’s house.  Run over there and look for him.  Scoot!  He may go off while you’re waiting to think about it.”

Wee Moses waited for no urging, but raced across Aunt Judith’s lawn, out of the gate, and down the avenue, the tuft of red hair waving like a flaming feather on the crown of his hat.

“Just notice his speed,” cried Harry, and Rose and Leslie laughed as the comical figure turned, and bolted up the driveway of the Atherton place.

“That is only one of Gyp’s small brothers,” Leslie said.

“I never knew that he had one named Moses,” said Rose.

“I’ve heard you tell their names, Harry,” Leslie said, “but I never remember them all.  I know there is a Mike, and a Pete, and isn’t one named Hank?”

“Yes, and there’s Luke and a little fellow that they call Sonny while they’re trying to decide what to name him,” said Harry, “and really he’s such a funny looking little fellow that it would be hard work to think of a name that would fit him.”

“There is a girl over on the other part of the town whose name is Tulip Rose Lillian Buttrick, and she told the girls that her parents gave her all those names because they couldn’t decide which they liked best.”

“What an idea!” cried Rose.  “Well, I’m glad I haven’t Tulip and Lillian added to my name.”

“I don’t see why those people stopped at all,” Harry said, “for there’s dandelion, and phlox and marigold, and a whole lot of other flower names.  Seems sort of stingy to give her only three.”

“Oh, Harry!  Nobody would name a girl ‘Phlox,’ think how it would look written,” Leslie said.

“I guess they don’t worry about how it would look written,” Harry said.

It was when Rose and Leslie and Harry were resting after an exciting game, that Mrs. Sherwood and Princess Polly arrived.

Then the fun began.

Mrs. Sherwood went in to talk with Aunt Judith, and the four playmates ran over to the Grafton’s for a game of tennis.  And while they were playing, eagerly hoping to win, each trying to outdo the other, little Sprite Seaford sat in the odd little living room of her home, sorting her treasures, and at the same time thinking what a fine time Princess Polly must be having at Aunt Judith’s cottage with Rose and her other playmates.

The pretty shells, the coral, and the star fish, each had places of their own, but they had been taken out to show to some callers the afternoon before, and Sprite was now engaged in replacing them, each in its own especial place.

Captain Seaford was out fishing and Mrs. Seaford had gone to the village to do a few errands so Sprite was free to take her time about the task.

Softly she sang as she placed the white shells in one row, and the pink shells in another.

A smart tap at the door made her start, then she called: 

“Come in,” and Gwen entered.

Sprite wished that she had not answered the rap.

“Goodness!  What a heap of shells.  What are you going to do with them?  Going to keep them?” Gwen asked, in a manner that implied that she thought he lovely sea treasures simply rubbish.

“Keep them!” echoed Sprite.  “Why of course I’m going to keep them.”

“They’re pretty of course,” Gwen admitted, “but it must be a horrid job to keep them in order.  Leave them where they are and come out on the beach.”

“Oh, I can’t,” said Sprite, and she was about to say that she must place her shells and coral in safe positions before going out, but Gwen did not wait to hear what she had intended to say.

Instead, she hurried out, banging the door behind her.

“I’ll find someone who’ll do as I want to,” she declared, and she ran up the beach to find Princess Polly, but Princess Polly and Rose were both at Avondale, and Gwen ran on to the center of the little coast village.

“I’ll find someone to play with, I don’t care who it is,” she said, as she raced along.

When the sea trophies were all in their places, Sprite stepped back to view her work.

A smile curved her lips, and her eyes grew brighter.

“They look finer than they ever did before,” she said softly, “and now I’ll try to keep them just as they are arranged.”

Sprite Seaford was often called a little “Water Witch,” from the fact that she was so much at home on the water.

She could swim wonderfully well for so small a girl, and she managed her boat with skill.

After another approving glance at the rows of softly tinted shells, she ran out onto the beach, and soon in her boat she was gliding along on the shallow water near the shore, her oars moving with slow precision, keeping time to the song that she was singing, or rather to the songs that she was singing, for she was making a gay little medley of many familiar tunes.

The light breeze lifted her long, waving hair, and let it flutter back from her face, it kissed her cheeks, and made them pink like the shells that she valued most.

The great gulls hovered overhead, flapping their wings, and circling about as if trying to determine what sort of little being it was that boasted such long tresses.

Skimming over a bit of shallow water, she chanced to look down and there, on the sandy bottom, was a shell, different in shape from any in her collection.

“I must have it,” she cried, and in a second she had drawn the oars into the boat, had slipped into the shallow water, and having pushed the light boat toward the shore, swam along under water until she came to the spot where the shell lay.

She came up to the surface to get the air, laughed, and swam downward again, snatched the coveted shell, and then made her way to where the little boat rocked on the waves.

She was in it in a moment, and again plying the oars, her shell on the seat opposite that on which she was sitting.

She had dressed herself in her little bathing suit, and she laughed as she saw that the warm breeze playing with her hair, was drying it, while her blouse and skirt were dripping and would continue to drip until hung up where the wind could blow through them.

Rarely a day passed that Sprite did not spend with Polly and Rose, but to-day they were away, and she must amuse herself.  They were her two dearest playmates, but the dancing waves were the next best.

“I love to play with Princess Polly, and with Rose Atherton, and when I’m not playing with them, I like my boat,” she said softly.  “I would have asked Gwen to stay but I didn’t want to her to.

“Gwen so often says unpleasant things.  Polly and Rose never do, and surely the boat doesn’t.  It never even answers back,” she added with a laugh.  Then for a time she plied the oars in silence, rowing always close along the shore, out from one little bay, and into another.

Then someone hailed her.

“Hi!  Sprite!  Sprite Seaford!”

She turned on her seat, and there, on the beach, close to the water, was Max Deland.

“Say!  Have you seen Gwen Harcourt?” he asked, his hands held trumpet-wise, to carry his voice to her.

“I saw her, oh, much as an hour ago, it may be longer,” Sprite answered.

“Oh, pshaw!  I mean have you seen her within a short time?” cried Max, impatiently.

“I said I saw her an hour ago, and maybe longer,” Sprite said.

“I wonder it wasn’t a week!” cried Max.  “I want her now.”

With that he ran off down the beach, and Sprite wondered why he was in such evident haste.

She turned the boat about, and rowed along in the direction that Max was going.

She saw him run along the beach, then stop and take something, a small book she thought, from his pocket, look steadfastly at it for a few moments, and then, after thrusting it back into his pocket, run on again.

She wondered what sort of book it was, and why Max seemed so very impatient in regard to seeing Gwen.  He seemed bent upon running the entire length of the beach, and she watched him until he either entered, or ran behind the little shanty that some workmen were using as a tool house.

“I believe Max is as queer in some ways as Gwen is,” mused Sprite.

“I wonder what that little book was, and why he had to stop to read it?”

A moment later she laughed, as she said:  “There’s one thing everyone knows, and that is that when Max and Gwen are together, they’re sure to get into mischief.  No one ever spends a minute wondering about that, because they know.”

She ran the boat into shallow water, made it fast to a pile that had been placed there for the purpose, tying the rope through the iron ring on the post.  Then she stepped over the side of the boat into the water, and waded ashore.  She wrung the water from her skirt, took off her shoes and emptied the water from them, and then ran up the beach toward home.

She opened the door and ran in.

The Captain would be out on the fishing trip all day, and it was evident that Mrs. Seaford had not yet returned from her trip to the store.

Sprite changed her drenched bathing suit for dry clothing, and hung the skirt and blouse up to dry.

She wondered why it was that she kept thinking of Max and his little book.