with pale yellow. Each stripe ended in a point, and a tiny
bell hung from each one.

The girls tried them on, one at a time, and Miss Pringle pinned and
basted and lengthened and shortened. She had made costumes all her
life and no play at Miss Harding's seemed complete until she had been
consulted.

"What are the other girls going to wear?" Daphne asked indifferently.

"Miss Grey will have a dear little shepherdess dress, and those two
that are always together, I've mislaid their names in my mind--"

Sally laughed and Phyllis said quickly,

"Rosamond Dodd and Eleanor Schuyler."

"Yes, those are the ones. Well, they are going as Jack and Jill, and,
oh, dearie me, I forgot. I know I've done my best for them all, and I
must say they had more faith in my judgment than you young ladies had."
An audible sniff ended the sentence.

"Oh, now, Miss Pringle," Sally protested, "we have unlimited faith in
you. Didn't I prove it last year by letting you make a fairy out of me
when I wanted to be a witch? This is a special joke we are having,
that's why we want to be all alike."

"A very poor one, if you ask me,"--another sniff. "I can understand
the Miss Pages, being as how they are twins, but--"

The girls were ready to leave, and Daphne interrupted her politely, but
in her most approved drawl:

"We must all have our dominoes before noon, you know," she said. "As
we are all going to dress at one house and go together, please be sure
they are delivered on time."

"Certainly, Miss Hillis. I think I can be depended upon to keep my
promises." Miss Pringle spoke huffily, but Daphne only smiled her
slowest smile and nodded graciously as they went down the steps.

Phyllis hesitated before she entered the waiting car. A man whom she
recognized as the caretaker of the house just back of theirs ran up the
steps and disappeared in the wake of Miss Pringle's trailing wrapper.

"Wonder how he got here so quickly," Phyllis said to herself, and then
dismissed the subject, at an impatient "hurry up" from Sally.

CHAPTER XI

THE MASQUERADE

"Aunt Jane's poll parrot, what a mob!"

The four girls, each in a domino exactly like the others, stood at the
door of the Greys' immense drawing-room and surveyed the scene before
them. It was, of course, Sally who spoke.

Phyllis laughed softly. "If you go about saying that, Sally, it won't
be hard to know who you are," she warned.

"You'll have to forget Aunt Jane a