“I am going to ask you to do me a great favor, John,” she began. “I don’t want you to think I am forward or pushing, but I do want very much to meet those Girl Scouts from Miss Allen’s school. I have a good reason, though it is a strange one; but I can’t tell it to you now. Do you suppose that when they come back from the ranch in the Fall, it could possibly be arranged?” John wrinkled his brow. What, he wondered, could have prompted this strange request? Dorothy could not possibly be jealous of Marjorie--she had never cared for him in that way--nor did she seem like a social climber who wanted to meet all the people who were in good circumstances. Like all the other mysteries about this girl, he had to give this one up unsolved. “Perhaps,” he said, slowly. “But it would be hard to have any sort of party, for they will be so scattered. Five or six of them have graduated from Miss Allen’s, and probably they will all be at different places. But I’ll think about it. Is it--” he hesitated for a moment--“is it any one girl in particular that you want to meet?” “No, indeed,” she hastened to reassure him. “And you never need tell me which is the girl you care for. But I would love to see them together.” John was turning over in his mind how the thing could possibly be carried out. Dorothy so seldom asked him for anything that he hated to refuse her. Suddenly his eyes lighted up with inspiration. He had it--the very thing! His mother might invite all eight of the girls for a week-end at Cape May, as a sort of return for the Wilkinson hospitality earlier in the summer. He told Dorothy of the idea. “That’s wonderful!” she cried. “But wouldn’t it be too much work for your mother?” “We could both turn in and help,” said John. “Of course we would. But--would the house be big enough for eight girls, besides us?” “Yes, they enjoy sleeping in a bunch. We could get in some extra cots, and fit them up four in a room.” “Let’s hurry back and ask your mother right away,” suggested Dorothy. More mystified than ever at this unusual display of enthusiasm, he complied with the girl’s request. All the way back they talked of nothing else. He too was thrilled with the plan; he said he would take a room at the hotel and come in only for meals, so that the house would be freer for the girls. As soon as they were home, they lost no time in putting the project before Mrs. Hadley. Always glad to comply with the young people’s wishes, she readily fell in with the scheme, and seemed as pleased as they were. She suggested that they make a tour of inspection of the house with her, so that she might assure herself of the plan’s practicality. They began with the attic. “These rooms are small,” she said, throwing open the two doors and displaying the conventional attic rooms, with the slanting roofs besides the windows. “But they really aren’t bad.” “They’re very comfortable!” said Dorothy. “At least I find mine so.”