Every hour that the girls could spare in the month of October was given to rehearsal, till the four fresh young voices were like one. They had decided to give nothing but English songs, to sing entirely from memory, and to make a specialty of good words well spoken. All the selections but one or two were to be without accompaniment, and in these Tommy would sit at the piano surrounded by the other three in a little group. Miss Guggenheim was to give them their first appearance, invite fifty or sixty people, and serve tea. She kindly offered to sing some solos herself, but Tommy, shuddering inwardly, said she thought it was better that the quartette should test its own strength unaided. Miss Guggenheim couldn't sing, but she could dress, and she had an inspiration a week before the concert. "What are you going to wear, girls?" she asked. "Anything we have, is the general idea," said Tommy. "Mine is black." "Mine's blue"--"White"--"Pink!" came from the other three. "But must you wear those particular dresses? Can't you each compromise a little so as to look better together?" "So hard to compromise when each of us has one dress hanging on one nail; one neck and sleeves filled up for afternoons and ripped out for evenings!" "I should get four simple dresses just alike," said Miss Guggenheim, who had a dozen. "What if they should hang in our closets unworn and unpaid for?" asked Jessie Macleod. "We're sure to get at least one engagement some time or other. Nothing ventured, nothing have. We ought to earn enough to pay for the dresses, if we do nothing more,"--and Tommy's vote settled it. Miss Guggenheim knew people, if she did sing flat, and her drawing-room was full on the occasion of the debut. Carl Bothwick, a friend of Tommy's, was in a publishing office, and nobly presented programmes for the occasion. The quartette had not thought of naming itself, but Carl had grouped the songs under the heading, "The Singing Girls," and luckily they liked the idea. At four o'clock the hum of conversation ceased at the sound of singing voices in the distance. A sort of processional effect had been Tommy's suggestion, and the quartette formed in the dressing-room and sang its way to the audience. "Hark, hark, the lark at Heaven's gate sings, And Phoebus 'gins to rise."