"I wonder if she can be having trouble with her poem," Marjorie thought innocently, but when she questioned Elsie on the subject, that young lady colored angrily, and replied that of course she wasn't, and she did wish people would stop talking about that silly Club; she was sick of the subject and had a great mind not to join at all. The dinner at the Lamonts was very pleasant, and Marjorie could not help being conscious of the fact that she looked unusually well in her new dress. Every one was kind to the little Western girl, and she liked Mrs. Lamont and her daughter better than ever. The Ward family were also of the party, and Marjorie was introduced to the Yale boy, Percy, whom she found most agreeable, though not, as she wrote her mother afterward, quite so nice as Beverly Randolph. "Why didn't you tell me what a jolly girl Marjorie Graham was?" Percy demanded of Elsie, when the cousins were alone together for a moment after dinner. Elsie flushed. "I didn't know you'd like her," she said, evasively. "She's dreadfully young for her age, and not a bit like the New York girls." "Well, she's all right anyway," maintained Percy. "I only wish I'd known about her in time to get another ticket for the game last Saturday. But she went with some other friends, didn't she?" "Oh, yes, she went," said Elsie, with a rather sarcastic smile. "She got some people at the hotel to take her in their car. You needn't worry about Marjorie; she knows how to take care of herself." Elsie spent another hour in her room on Friday morning, and was so cross and disagreeable at luncheon, that Marjorie wondered more and more what the matter could possibly be. But in the afternoon Elsie cheered up, and her cousin came to the conclusion that whatever the trouble had been, it was evidently over. The meeting was to begin at eight o'clock, so immediately after an early dinner, the two girls, accompanied as usual by Hortense, started in the carriage for Lulu's home, which was on Madison Avenue, only a few blocks away. Lulu was a charming little hostess, and gave her friends a cordial greeting, explaining that her mother and aunt would come down later, but it had been a stipulation with some of the Club members that nobody grown up was to hear the poems or take part in the initiation. Several of Miss Lothrop's girls had already arrived, and there were also present a few more young people, particular friends of Lulu's, who had been invited to join the Club. "I want you to meet my friend, Betty Randall," Lulu said to Marjorie, as Elsie turned away to speak to other friends. "She's English, and just as nice as can be. She and her mother and brother are visiting us. She can't be a member, because they are all going back to England next week, but she and Jack are the special guests of the evening, and they are both to be allowed to vote on the poems." Betty Randall was a quiet, sweet-faced girl of fifteen, and Marjorie liked her at once.