At five o’clock the Flower Festival was opened and afternoon tea was served to the early comers.  All the members of the United Service Club and the other boys and girls of the town who helped them wore flower costumes.  It was while the Ethels were serving Mrs. Smith and the Miss Clarks that the latter called their attention to a man who sat at a table not far away.

“That man is your rival,” they announced, smiling, to Mrs. Smith.

“My rival!  How is that?” inquired Mrs. Smith.

“He wants to buy the field.”

They all exclaimed and looked again at the man who sat quietly eating his ice cream as if he had no such dreadful intentions.  The Ethels, however, recognized him as he pushed back a lock of hair that fell over his forehead.

“Why, that’s our werwolf!” they exclaimed after taking a good look at him, and they explained how they had seen him several times in the field, always digging a stick into the ground and examining what it brought up.

“He says he’s a botanist, and he finds so much to interest him in the field that he wants to buy it so that he may feel free to work there,” said Miss Clark the younger.

“That’s funny,” commented Ethel Blue.  “He almost never looks at any flowers or plants.  He just pokes his stick in and that’s all.”

“He offered us a considerable sum for the property but we told him that you had an option on it, Mrs. Smith, and we explained that we couldn’t give title anyway.”

“Did his interest seem to fail?”

“He asked us a great many questions and we told him all about our aunt and the missing cousin.  I thought you might be interested to know that some one else besides yourself sees some good in the land.”

“It’s so queer,” said the other Miss Clark.  “That land has never had an offer made for it and here we have two within a few weeks of each other.”

“And we can’t take advantage of either of them!”

The Ethels noticed later on that the man was joined by a girl about their own age.  They looked at her carefully so that they would recognize her again if they saw her, and they also noticed that the werwolf, as he talked to her, so often pushed back from his forehead the lock of hair that fell over it that it had become a habit.

The full effect of the flower costumes was seen after the lanterns were lighted, when some of the young married women attended to the tables while their youngers marched around the lawn that all might see the costumes and be attracted to the entertainment in the hall and behind the screen in the open.

Roger led the procession, impersonating “Spring.”

“That’s a new one to me,” ejaculated the editor of the Star in surprise.  “I always thought ‘Spring’ was of the feminine gender.”

“Not this year,” returned Roger merrily as he passed by.

He was dressed like a tree trunk in a long brown cambric robe that fitted him closely and gave him at the foot only the absolute space that he needed for walking.  He carried real apple twigs almost entirely stripped of their leaves and laden with blossoms made of white and pink paper.  The effect was of a generously flowering apple tree and every one recognized it.