The occasion certainly seemed to warrant some form of compensation. Evie hastily followed Annie's example, and sacrificed a private store of toffee on the altar of hospitality. Blissfully sucking, the six seniors allowed themselves to be mollified. As connoisseurs of jokes, they were ready to acknowledge the superior excellence of the trick played upon them; moreover, they found one another's appearance highly diverting. "Betty Scott, you'll be the death of me some day," remarked Rhoda Wilkins. "Oh, Agnes! If you could only see yourself in the glass!" "It's the pot calling the kettle! Look at your own face!" "Do you think we could possibly work it on the Sixth?" "No, they'd smell a rat." "I want my tea," said Annie. "Oh, cock-a-doodle-doo! There's the first bell! Hip-hip-hooray! I say, you six, if you don't want to give Miss Birks a first-class fit, you'd best be toddling to the bath-room, and applying the soap-and-water treatment to your interesting countenances." CHAPTER VII An Invitation "Zickery, dickery, lumby tum, Tip me the wink, and out I'll come, Leave my pagoda so glum, glum, glum, To drink green tea with my own Yum-Yum!" So chanted Evie Bennett on the following Monday, bursting into VB room with a face betokening news, and a manner suggestive of Bedlam. "What's the matter, you lunatic? Look here, if you go on like a dancing dervish we shall have to provide you with a padded room! Mind the inkpot! Oh, I say, you'll have the black-board over! Hasn't anybody got a strait-waistcoat? Evie's gone sheer, stark, raving mad!" "I've got news, my hearty! News! news! news! 'What will you take for my news? I know it will make you enthuse! There isn't a girl who'll refuse, Or offer to make an excuse.' Ahem! A poor thing, but mine own. I'm waxing so poetical, I think I must be inspired." "Or possessed! Sit down, you mad creature, and talk sense. What's your precious news?" "Mrs. Trevellyan requests the pleasure of the company of the young ladies of Miss Birks's seminary to drink tea with her on the occasion of the natal day of her nephew, Master Ronald Trevellyan," announced Evie, changing suddenly to a ceremonious eighteenth-century manner, and dropping a stiff curtsy. "Ronnie's birthday!" "Oh, what sport!" "It's on Wednesday." "Has she asked only us?" "No, the whole school is to go, mistresses and all," returned Evie. "Mrs. Trevellyan wants to introduce Ronnie's new governess to us." "There are sure to be games, and perhaps a competition with prizes," rejoiced Annie Pridwell; "and we always have delicious teas at the Castle. Gerda Thorwaldson, why don't you look pleased? You take it as quietly as if it were a parochial meeting. What a mum mouse you are!" "Is it anything to get so excited over?" replied Gerda calmly.