"Stand round and listen, and look intelligent and appreciative, and all the rest of it, I suppose. We'll have to be saints during the ceremony, but we'll have some fun afterwards. D'you know the school's to be thrown open to all sorts of visitors? Not only old fogies who make speeches, but other people. The day girls may each ask three friends, and they can bring brothers if they like." "You don't say so! Miss Thompson _is_ coming on. Are you certain?" "It's quite true," confirmed Avelyn. "I was allowed an invitation card too, and I've asked Mother and Daphne and David, and I've got Pamela to ask Anthony with one of her spare invitations." "What sport!" "We'll all have to wear our best dresses," said Janet. "Rather! You bet we do!" In preparation for the coming event, a wave of what Miss Hopkins would have dubbed "worldliness" swept over the Cowslip Room. The girls reviewed their frocks critically. Laura implored Miss Kennedy to allow hers to be sent to the dressmaker, to be lengthened two inches. Janet borrowed the last drops of Ethelberga's before-the-war bottle of benzoline, to remove a stain left by the dropping, butter-side down, of a piece of muffin. Avelyn brushed her hair every night with eau de Cologne to make it glossy. Ethelberga, in defiance of food saving, begged oatmeal from the cook, and rubbed it on her face to improve her complexion. Irma, after criticizing the costumes of her friends, sprang a surprise on them. "I've sent home for a new dress," she announced carelessly. "You haven't!" "Yes, I have, and what's more, I expect it to-morrow. Mother wrote that she was telling Barclays to post it to me direct." "Well, I do think you might have told us before." The other girls felt as if Irma had stolen an advantage. If the idea had occurred to them they might also have written home for new dresses. It was unfortunately too late now. Irma alone, of the Cowslip Room, would attend the festival in the glory of a new gown. She gave herself airs in consequence. It was an unfortunate characteristic of Irma that she was apt to get swelled head on occasion. Her room-mates were constantly on the look-out for symptoms of this complaint, and generally applied drastic measures before things went too far. In a dormitory it does not do to allow a girl to maintain too exalted an opinion of herself. "Irma's swanking no end!" affirmed Ethelberga. "Putting on side galore!" agreed Janet tartly. "We ought to do something to take the wind out of her sails a little," said Laura, looking pensive. Avelyn's eyes suddenly sparkled. "I've got it!" she chuckled. "We'll play a rag on her this afternoon. It'll be ever such fun! Oh, I've thought of a perfectly gorgeous plan. No, I don't think I'll tell you what it is yet; but stroll up to the dormitory as soon after four as you can, and make Irma come too on some excuse. Then I'll have a little surprise for you." "You might tell us!" "No, no! Not a word! It would spoil the surprise."