e stamps!"

"Girls," cried Alene, "I'm taking Hermie and Vera up to see the tower
room. Do you care to come along?"

"Not I, thank you, I'll wait for some brighter day," returned Ivy.

"The distinguished author of the Sunset Book does not wish to look from
the tower window upon anything less than a sunset!" explained Laura.
"So I'll stay and try to console her in the absence of one."

Ivy curled herself among the cushions of the friendly little sofa in
the cosy corner and fell to dreaming, while Laura sat at the piano and
played several pieces, some of which, though very difficult, she
rendered by ear with expression and fidelity. Laura's talent was fully
known to Ivy, who on this occasion found the sweet sounds chiming in
with her own idle fancies.

How long she lay snuggled there, half hid by the crimson curtains,
while the rain made its unwearied assault upon the window panes and the
wind soughed mournfully among the trees, she did not know. When she
awoke, Laura was playing the two step, to the wonder and admiration of
the Ramsey girls who were practising the dance together. Ivy did not
see Alene anywhere and for a moment she had a strange, half-waking
dream, that she was upstairs all alone in the tower room, weeping
because Vera had beat and pinched her.

"Why didn't I go up with them? I thought only of myself, as usual,"
Ivy muttered. She was on the point of rising to go in search of Alene
when a noise was heard and there in the doorway stood a queer little
figure enveloped from head to foot in a blue gingham apron. That she
was no stranger was evidenced by Prince leaping joyfully beside her.

"I've come to invite you-alls to a taffy pulling in the kitchen," she
said, with a drawl and an odd little courtesy that made everybody
laugh, "No one admitted except _en costume_," pointing to her apron,
"so each of you must find one hidden somewhere in the hall or
dining-room!"

"Hurrah!"

"Good fun!"

"Come along!"

A rush was made and the search began.

Ivy was the first to find an apron in the folds of an umbrella on the
hall rack, the very place where, strange to say, Laura had searched
unsuccessfully a moment before. With the help of the latter she was
soon draped in its red and white bars and joined Alene in watching the
others.

Hermione's search at the back of a door was rewarded by the discovery
of a costume hanging on the knob; Vera found another folded under a
cushion in the dining-room