te matter, were dressing
at the school. They had gone as Gypsies--not comic opera Gypsies, but
real Gypsies, dirty and ragged and patched. (They had daily dusted the
room with their costumes for a week before the fete.) Patty wore one
brown stocking and one black, with a conspicuous hole in the right calf.
Conny's toes protruded from one shoe, and the sole of the other flapped.
Their hair was unkempt and the stain on their faces streaked. They were
the last word in realism.

They scrambled into their dresses to-day with little ceremony, and
hitched them together anyhow. Conny caught up a tambourine and Patty a
worn-out pack of cards, and they clattered down the tin-covered back
stairs. In the lower hall they came face to face with Miss Jellings,
clothed in cool muslin, and in a more affable frame of mind. Patty never
held her grudges long; she had already forgotten her momentary
indignation at not being allowed to look at the clock.

"You cross-a my hand with silver? I tell-a your fortune."

She danced up to the gymnasium teacher with a flutter of scarlet
petticoats, and poked out a dirty hand.

"Nice-a fortune," Conny added with a persuasive rattle of the
tambourine. "Tall, dark-a young man."

"You impudent little ragamuffins!" Miss Jellings took them each by the
shoulder and turned them for inspection. "What have you done to your
faces?"

"Washed 'em in black coffee."

Miss Jellings shook her head and laughed.

"You're a disgrace to the school!" she pronounced. "Don't let any
policeman see you, or he'll arrest you for vagabonds."

"Patty! Conny!--Hurry up. The hearse is starting."

Priscilla appeared in the doorway and waved her gridiron frantically.
Priscilla, late about finding a costume, at the last moment had
blasphemously gone as St. Laurence, draped in a sheet, with the kitchen
broiler under her arm.

"We're coming! Tell him to wait." Patty dashed out.

"Don't you want a coat?" Conny shrieked after her.

"No--come on--we don't need coats."

The two raced down the drive after the wagonette--Martin never waited
for laggards; he let them run and catch up. They sprang onto the rear
step; and half-a-dozen outstretched hands hauled them in, head first.

They found the photographer's waiting-room a scene of the maddest
confusion. When sixty excited people occupy the normal space of twelve,
the effect is not restful.

"Did anyone bring a button-hook?"

"Lend me some powder."

"That's _my_ safety-