the quiet girl who had taken such a strong hold on his boyish interest, and with that end in view Mignon planned to make her reinstatement a sweeping success. Friday afternoon was a lost session, so far as study went, to the Sanford girls who were to make up the feminine portion of Marjorie's party. "Good gracious, I thought half-past three would never come!" grumbled Jerry Macy in Marjorie's ear as they filed decorously through the corridor. "Let's make a quick dash for the locker-room. I've a pressing engagement with the hair-dresser and I'm dying to get through with it and sweep down to dinner in my new silver net party dress. It's a dream and makes me look positively thin. You won't know me when you see me." "You're not the only one," put in Muriel Harding. "You won't be one, two, three when I appear to-night in all my glory." "Listen to the conceited things," laughed Irma Linton. "'I won't speak of myself,' as H. C. Anderson beautifully puts it." "Who's he?" demanded Jerry. "I know every boy in Sanford High, but I never heard of him." A shout of laughter greeted her earnest assertion. "Wake up, Jerry," dimpled Susan Atwell. "H. C. stands for Hans Christian. Now does the light begin to break?" "Oh, you make me tired," retorted Jerry. "Irma did that on purpose. That's worse than my favorite trap about letting it rain in Spain. How was I to know what she meant?" "That's all because you don't cultivate literary tastes," teased Muriel. "I do cultivate them," grinned Jerry. "I've read the dictionary through twice, without skipping a page!" "It must have been a pocket edition," murmured Marjorie. "Stop teasing me or I'll get cross and not come to your party," threatened Jerry. "You mean nothing could keep you away," laughed Irma. "You're right. Nothing could. I'll be there, clad in costly raiment, to spur the reform party on to deeds of might." "Do come early, all of you," urged Marjorie as she paused at her corner to say good-bye. "We'll be there," chorused the quartette after her. "I hope everyone will have a nice time," was Marjorie's fervent reflection as she hurried on her way. "I do wish Mary would walk home with me once in a while, instead of always waiting for Mignon. I wouldn't ask her to for worlds, though." To see Mary walk away with Mignon at the end of every session of school had been a heavy cross for Marjorie to bear. Surrounded as she always was with the four faithful members of her own little set, she was often lonely. If only Constance had been in school she could have better borne Mary's disloyalty, although the latter could never quite fill the niche which years of companionship had carved in her heart for Mary. But Connie was far away, so she must go on enduring this bitter sorrow and make no outward sign.