ones. "Does Mary know?"

Betty nodded. "She hasn't had time to answer yet, but she can certainly
go, as she lives so near Ethel."

"The only difficulty about our going," said Babe, "is what to do with
the few days between the wedding and the opening of college."

"And that's easily settled," said Madeline promptly. "Miss Hale lives
just out of New York, doesn't she? Well, you are all to come and stay in
the flat with me. Hasn't it just been beautifully cleaned? And aren't
you all longing for a glimpse of Bohemia?"

That was the climax of the tea drinking. The Merry Match-Makers spent
the evening writing home to their parents for permission to go to the
wedding and considering momentous problems of dress. For Roberta's best
evening-gown was lavender and Babbie's was pink, and the question was
how to distribute Betty, Babe and Helen in white, Bob in blue, Eleanor
in her favorite yellow, Madeline in ecru, and Mary in any one of a
bewildering number of possible toilettes, so as to justify Ethel's hope
that the aisle would be ornamental as well as useful.

How the days flew after that! For besides the wedding there were the
luncheon and the dance to anticipate and plan for, as well as the
unknown joys of Bohemia, New York, not to mention the regular excitement
of going home, the fun of tucking Christmas presents into the corners of
half-packed trunks, and the terrors of the written lesson that some
inhuman member of the faculty always saves for the crowded last week of
the term.

On the afternoon of the twenty-ninth the Merry Match-Makers met in New
York. Babbie had sent a sad little note to Miss Hale and a tearful one
to Betty to say that her mother, who was a good deal of an invalid, had
"looked pretty blue over my running off early, and so of course I won't
leave her;" and Helen Adams had decided that considering all the extra
expenses of senior year she couldn't afford the trip to New York. So
there were only seven "almost bridesmaids," as Roberta called them, or
"posts," which was Bob's name for them, to fall upon one another as if
they had been separated for years, instead of a week, say thank you for
the presents that were each "just what I wanted," and exclaim excitedly
over Betty's new suit, Mary's fur coat, and the sole-leather kit-bag
that Santa Claus had brought Roberta.

"It's queer," said Bob. "I feel as if I'd had one whole vacation
already, and ought to be unpacking and digging on psychology 6 and
his