other girls. She
wondered, too, if there were any way in which she might show Marjorie
her affection and gratitude, and she made a solemn resolve that if that
time came she would prove herself worthy of Marjorie Dean's friendship.

CHAPTER XI

THE HALLOWE'EN DANCE

Saturday dawned as inauspiciously as any other day in the week, but to
the high school boys and girls of the little city of Sanford it was a
day set apart. Aside from commencement, the great event of their high
school year was about to take place.

As early as eight o'clock that morning the decorating committee of
Weston High School was up and laboring manfully at the task of turning
Weston's big gymnasium into a veritable bower of beauty, which should,
in due season, draw forth plenty of admiring "Ohs!" and "Ahs!" from
their gentle guests. For three days the committee had been borrowing,
with lavish promises of safe return, as many cushions, draperies,
chairs, divans and various other articles calculated to fitly adorn the
ballroom, as their families and friends confidingly allowed them to
carry off.

Their progress along this line had been painstakingly watched by
numerous pairs of sharp, young eyes, and the report had gone forth among
the girls that this particular Hallowe'en party was going to be "the
nicest dance the boys had ever given."

To Marjorie Dean, however, the event promised more than the usual
interest. It was to be her first opportunity of entering into the social
life of the boys and girls of Sanford. In B---- she had numbered many
stanch friends among the young men of Lafayette High School, but she had
lived in Sanford for, what seemed to her, a very long time and had not
met a single Weston boy. Jerry had promised to introduce Marjorie to her
brother and to the tall, fair-haired youth known as the Crane, but so
far the young people had not been thrown together. Marjorie had no
silly, sentimental ideas in her curly brown head about boys. From early
childhood she had been allowed to play with them. She was fond of their
games and had always evinced far more interest in marbles, tops and even
baseball than she had in dolls. Still, at sixteen, she was not a hoyden
nor a tomboy, but a merry, light-hearted girl with a strong, healthy
body and a feeling of comradeship toward boys in general which was to
carry her far in her later life.

At the time she had given Constance the blue gown she had also gained
her friend's rather relu