feel?"

"I should feel that I'd rather work than go home with Auntie, if I were
Dora," declared she who was sifting.

"So should I if _I_ were Dora," agreed her sister.

A minute later one of the girls, while testing the heat of the oven,
screamed.

"Oh, oh!" she cried. "Oh, oh! I'm burned! Look at that!" and she held up
her wrist with a white mark across it.

Her sister darted across the kitchen, crying:

"I'll get the witch hazel--you poor dear!"

She had forgotten Aunt Dora, hiding in the pantry, and she collided with
her with considerable force.

"What's the matter with you?" demanded the exasperated old lady.

"Nothing with me," returned the hurrying girl. "It's _she_ who's
burned."

"Who's burned?" cried Aunt Dora. "Which of you is hurt?"

The girl who had stopped recovered her self-possession. "Let me go,
Auntie," she said, quietly. "_My sister_ has burned her wrist."

And so the anxious and determined aunt did not catch the twins off their
guard, neither in war nor peace.

CHAPTER IX

ONE IS A HEROINE

When the girls invited to Evangeline Sitz's "party" hurried out of
Central High on Monday afternoon, they found, as Laura Belding had
promised, her father's automobile, as well as one of Mr. Purcell's big,
three-seated "lumber barges," as the boys called Centerport's
sight-seeing autos. There were three seats behind the driver's, each
wide enough for four persons.

Laura and Chet (the latter of whom drove the Belding machine) had their
own close friends in the smaller auto, and it was well filled. Mr.
Purcell stood by the chauffeur of the big car as the Lockwood twins
whisked into the front seat, completely filling it. Dora and Dorothy
always preferred to keep together, and nobody could get between them
here.

The girls heard the automobile owner ask the driver:

"How do you feel now, Bennie? All right?"

"Pretty good, Boss," said the man, who, the twins noticed, was pale.

"Sure you can make it all right? If you feel bad, say so, and I'll take
your place."

"I'll be all right, Boss, once we get moving," said the chauffeur.

"Oh, look who's here!" whispered Dorothy, suddenly, to her sister,
pinching her arm to attract her attention.

"It's Pretty!" gasped Dora. "Isn't he a vision of loveliness?"

The dandy of the school came mincing along the sidewalk with the evident
intention of joining the auto party. He had been excused from classes
early to go home and "rig up" for the