till I could choose for
myself."

"What a good idea!" said Eunice, admiringly. "I never thought of that.
What name would you choose?"

"Hildegarde Genevieve," answered Edna, promptly. "Those are my favourite
names. And I wish my last name was Montague."

"Hildegarde Genevieve Montague! That's a beautiful name!" exclaimed
Cricket. "Have that for your club name, Edna. Now you choose, Eunice."

"Let me see!" considered Eunice. "I think Esmeralda is just splendid,
and I _love_ Muriel. Esmeralda Muriel would do."

"And have Le Grand for your last name," begged Cricket. "I think
anything with a _Le_ in it is so--so stately. But Muriel is one of my
favourite names, too, Eunice. What shall I choose? Do you like Seretta?"

"That isn't a real name, is it," asked Edna.

"I made it up the other night, and I think it's sweet. I'll be Seretta
Carlillian. I made that up, too. So that's settled," said Cricket,
resuming her work, and signing, "Hildegarde Genevieve Montague," very
carefully.

The rest of the family had, of course, noticed the sudden literary bent
of these young women, and were all curiosity to know the reason of it.
The boys gave them no peace, and though the girls stuck to their secret
valiantly, Will and Archie managed to worm it from them at last. To the
relief of the girls, however, they did not tease, but, on the contrary,
quite approved, and even offered to contribute, an offer which the small
editor would not accept unconditionally.

"You may write things," she said, rather dubiously, "and _if_ I like
them I'll print them. But I'm not going to put in any nonsense. This is
a really-truly paper, and the girls have written beautiful stories."

She was sole judge of the production, however, for the other girls had
agreed that it would be more fun if nobody but the editor knew the
contents of the paper till it was read. It proved to be a great deal of
work to copy all the paper neatly in printing letters, but Cricket stuck
to it faithfully. Auntie advised that she should work regularly, one
hour in the morning, and one hour in the afternoon, till she got it
done, and Cricket, who, at first, felt obliged to work at it all the
morning, very willingly followed her suggestion. Auntie had also
undertaken to advance the money for the badges, which a little local
watchmaker had promised to have done before Wednesday. He kept his
promise, and three prouder little girls never walked than these three,
when they faste