d of my uncle's," Daphne explained. "It's little
Don's cousin, Chuck Vincent, that Muriel walks home with every day.
I've played tennis with him, and he's really rather fun for a boy," she
drawled.

"For a boy?" laughed Janet. "I think boys are a whole lot more fun
than girls."

"I don't," Daphne replied airily. "I think they are all very stuck up.
Chuck is; you'll see that to-morrow night."

"Wonder if Miss Pringle will really have our things ready for us,"
Sally said. "She is always so uncertain. If she doesn't, I think I
will die of disappointment."

"You tell her she has to, Daphne," Janet suggested. "You can always
put on such airs, and they never fail to impress."

"Do my best." Daphne accepted Janet's compliment calmly; she knew it
was true. Her drawl did seem to impress people, though she could never
imagine why.

The car stopped before a dilapidated, brownstone house, and the girls
got out and hurried up the worn steps. Miss Pringle herself let them
in. She was a tall, angular woman, with wisps of untidy hair blowing
about her face, and a mouth out of which she could always produce a pin
at a moment's notice.

"Oh, young ladies," she said distractedly. "Why have you come?"

"We want to try on our dominoes," Sally said, rather taken aback.

"Dominoes? Oh, yes, yes, to be sure. Step this way."

She led them into a large room, filled with the smell of the kerosene
stove and strewn with patterns and pieces of silks. It was a
cluttered-up place.

"Here they are!" Phyllis exclaimed, going over to the table and picking
up a dress. "Aren't they ducks?"

"Don't touch, please," Miss Pringle said nervously; "they're only
pinned."

She picked up one of the costumes and beckoned to Sally.

"This is yours, Miss Ladd. Slip it over your head."

The others crowded around and admired.

"Oh, Sally, it's a love!" Phyllis enthused.

Miss Pringle shook her head and sighed.

"I can't understand why you are having them all alike," she complained.
"Now, if you had only consulted me I could have designed such a pretty
one for each of you; but, no, you must have your own way."

"But we want them alike for a special reason," Sally explained. "It's
to be a regular masquerade, you know, and we thought that four costumes
just alike would confuse people,"--she stopped, discouraged by the lack
of Miss Pringle's attention.

The costume was a domino made of strips of colored silks with a big
hood lined