"I hardly know whether you or I feel the most relieved because the forenoon session is half finished. If it was any other time than immediately before the holidays, I should think it my duty to inflict extra tasks upon you all; but, under the circumstances, I propose to do just the reverse, by increasing the length of recess, giving you half an hour instead of fifteen minutes. After that time, I expect you will be in a more fitting condition to give proper attention to your studies; if such should not be the case, it will become my duty to remind you forcibly that you must not try to unite your amusements with your studies." The boys, headed by Si, rushed out with their customary shout of joy, and the girls went at once into one of the classrooms, where an indignation meeting was held, but not called to 'order. " It's all Si Kelly's doings!" exclaimed Aggie. " The other boys would have been in favor of the party if he hadn't said they shouldn't. I should think they would be ashamed of themselves to come and go at his beck and call!" Si's ears must have tingled during that recess, . if there is any truth in the old saying that those useful members grow warm when their owner is being spoken ill of, for every girl present seemed to think it her duty to say something against him before she could discuss the matter with calmness. "It's no use standing here talking about that Kelly boy," Maria Gilman said, at last. "The bell will ring, and we sha'n't have anything settled. The question is, what are we going to do? Of course it is foolish for us to say that we can have very much of 'a party if all the boys stay away." "We must have it," said Annie Rich, decidedly. "It would never do to let them think that we had given up a good time just because they wouldn't join us." "Yes, we must have the party," said Aggie, thoughtfully, " and we must make the boys come, if possible. It's no use for me to try to study now, and I'm going to ask the deacon to let me go home. Some of you girls catch Winny Curtis, and find out from him what the boys are going to do. I'll think up some kind of a plan, and after school to-night we'll see what can be done." Then, refusing to answer a single question, but cautioning the girls not to look as if they cared in the slightest because of the letter, Aggie went into the schoolroom, where she had no difficulty in getting permission to go home. As a matter of fact, Deacon Littlefield would have been more pleased than his pupils could have been, if he could have given them all a holiday; for trying to teach a number of boys and girls who were in the highest state of excitement over Aggie's proposed necktie party, was a task.