watched her critically and sighed. She was awfully sorry for her
but she was angry too. She wanted to shake her, to make her laugh or
cry or do something besides just sitting there with that forced smile
and her brown eyes ready to flood with tears any minute.

"I wish she would bawl and have it over with," she thought to herself.

Janet lifted the lid of her desk to put away her papers, and Sally
lifted hers at the same time and bent her head so that she could speak
without being seen from the desk.

"Phyllis is coming over to my house this afternoon," she whispered;
"will you come too?"

"Oh, thanks, I'd like to," Janet replied eagerly.

Sally sighed with relief. So far so good. Once in her own home, with
a box of candy between them, they could surely straighten everything
out.

As for Janet, she had hardly accepted the invitation before she
regretted it. Sally only wanted her because she knew Phyllis would not
come without her, or so she argued.

"I won't be a bother to them," she declared vehemently. "_I won't._"

So when Sally and Phyllis hurried to the study hall after being
detained by Miss Baxter at the close of school, Janet was nowhere to be
found.

"But she said she'd come," Sally exclaimed angrily. "Oh, she's left a
note on my desk, listen--

"Dear Sally--" (she read)

"I am sorry that I won't be able to come to your house with Phyllis
this afternoon, but I have just remembered something that I must hurry
home to do.

"Thank you very much for bothering to ask me.

"JANET."

"My Aunt Jane's poll parrot!" was all poor Sally could say.

"But she didn't have anything to do at home," Phyllis protested. "Oh,
Sally, what is the matter with her, and what shall I do?"

"You'll come home with me first of all," Sally replied with
determination; "then later in the afternoon we will go over to your
house, as though nothing had happened, and perhaps we can persuade her
to come out for a walk."

"All right, if you think that's best,"--Phyllis agreed to the plan,
dismally. "But I warn you I won't be very good fun."

"If she would only come to her senses," Sally exclaimed.

In the meantime, Janet had hurried away from school. She did not want
Phyllis to see her for, with that lump in her throat, she knew an
explanation would mean tears, and Janet hated tears.

Her steps lagged before she had gone very far, and she walked on
slowly, deep in an unhappy revery, too miserable to notice