:
"Oh, Anna, you've hit it. I do believe it _is_ the clew. Why _didn't_ I
think of April-fool's day,--that it would be just the opportunity Nelly
Ryder would take advantage of to play a trick, because she could throw
it off from herself as a mere April joke, if her hand was found out in
it. Yes, yes, she has planned to drag Angela into some performance or
other on the birthday that will make her ridiculous and offensive to
Marian,--sending her on some fool's errand to Marian, perhaps the night
of the party, as somebody sent poor little Tilly Drake last year with a
silly message to Clara Harrington that made Clara furious, and mortified
Tilly dreadfully."

"Oh, well, Angela wouldn't be taken in like that; she's brighter than
Tilly."

"Angela is just the one to be taken in. She's one of the brightest
persons I ever saw about books and things of that kind, but she is very
innocent and unsuspecting. Anna, I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I'm
going to see Marian this noon, and I'm going to tell her what I
suspect."

"No, I wouldn't do that; it wouldn't be fair, for it's only our
suspicion, and we _may_ be on the wrong track altogether."

"But what am I to do? Sit still and let some horrid thing perhaps go on
that I might stop?"

"I'll tell you what you might do. You might say to Marian that you had
got an idea that somebody was going to play a trick on her
birthday,--upon her and some unsuspecting person; that you didn't know
_what_ the trick was to be, and you might be all wrong in your suspicion
that there was to be one, but you thought that you ought to put her on
her guard. You might say this to her without mentioning a name."

"Oh, Anna, Anna, what a cautious little thing you are with your 'mays'
and your 'mights;' but you are right, you are right, and I'll go to
Marian this noon, and say just what you've told me to say, and not a
word more."

CHAPTER II.

Mary thought it would be a very easy matter to say to Marian what Anna
had suggested, but it wasn't so easy as she thought. Marian was a year
older than herself, and that meant a good deal to a girl of fifteen,--a
year older and more than a year beyond her, with the experience of
Washington city life and schools during the winter months. In fact, to
Mary, who had not seen her for the past few months, she appeared so
experienced and grown-up, as she came into the room to meet her, that
that young person felt all at once very young and awkward, and