backward. "Look--it's on your own head! Oh, girls, I shall die." She
pointed tragically up to the hat, then gave a sudden nip with her long
fingers, and brought out of a knot of ribbon, a gilt, twisted affair
with pink stones. "You had it all the time, Sally Moore," and she went
into peals of laughter.

"Well, do stop; everybody's looking," cried the rest of the girls, as
they raced off to the train, now at a dead stop. Sally, with her hat
crammed on her head at a worse angle than ever, only realized that she
had the ornament safely clutched in her hand.

"Oh, I can't help it," exclaimed Alexia gustily, and hurrying off to get
next to Polly. "Oh dear me!--whee--_whee_!" as they all plunged into the
train.

When they arrived at Edgewood, there was a carriage and a wagonette
drawn up by the little station, and out of the first jumped Silvia, and
following her, a tall, thin girl who seemed to have a good many
bracelets and jingling things.

"My cousin, Kathleen Briggs. She just came to-day," said Silvia, "while
I was at school, and so mother thought it would be nice to have you
girls out to supper, 'cause they're only going to stay till to-morrow.
Oh, it's so fine that you've come! Well, come and get in. Polly, you're
going in the carriage with Kathleen and me. Come on."

Alexia crowded up close behind.

"I'm going with Polly Pepper, this time," announced Sally, pushing in
between; "Alexia always gets her."

"Well, she's my very dearest friend," said Alexia coolly, and working
her long figure up close to Polly, as Silvia led her off, "so of course
I always must go with her."

"Well, so she is our very dearest friend, too, Alexia Rhys," declared
Clem, "and we're going to have her sometimes, ourselves." And there they
were in a dreadful state, and Silvia's cousin, the new girl, to see it
all!

She jingled her bracelets, and picked at the long chain dangling from
her neck, and stared at them all.

"Oh my goodness!" exclaimed Polly Pepper with very red cheeks. "Alexia,
don't--don't," she begged.

"Well, I don't care," said Alexia recklessly, "the girls are always
picking at me because I will keep next to you, Polly, and you're my very
dearest friend, and----"

"But Sally had such a fright about her pin," said Polly in a low tone.
Alexia was crowded up close and hugging her arm, so no one else heard.

"Well, that old pin dropped in the ribbon; she had it herself all the
time, oh dear!" Alexia nearly went off ag