nce pretty soon they will be caught in a
rain." Seated beside Marjorie and Lucy Warner in the big porch swing,
Jerry squinted at the rapidly clouding sky.

While the day had been warm and moderately sunny, dark clouds had been
looming up here and there in the sky since four o'clock. Scattered at
first, they had gradually banked solidly in the west, obscuring the
sunset and promising rain before nightfall.

"What time is it, Jeremiah?" asked Lucy. "I promised to meet Katherine
here on the veranda at five-thirty. She left her handbag at Lillian's
last night and we are going to walk over there before dinner."

"Why, Luciferous!" Jerry fixed Lucy with an amazed eye. "Can I believe
that you and your precious watch have parted company even for a brief
half hour!"

Lucy giggled. Her extreme fondness for the wrist watch Ronny had given
her was well known to her chums.

"I broke the crystal," she confessed. "It dropped from my hand the other
night on the lavatory floor. I miss it terribly you had better believe.
It will be fixed tomorrow, thank goodness."

"Surprised at such carelessness. Ahem!" Jerry teased. "If you want to
know the time, it is twenty-seven minutes past five. Your kindred spirit
should appear in three minutes."

"Here she comes now." Marjorie had spied Katherine coming up the walk.

"Did you think I was going to be late?" Katherine called from the bottom
step. "I had an awful time looking up some data at the library. I just
left there and ran half the way here. It looks like rain, but, if we
walk fast, we can go over to Wenderblatt's and back before it starts.
Want to go along, Marjorie and Jerry?"

"I might as well. I've nothing else to do before dinner. Come on,
Jeremiah. A fast walk before dinner will be a splendid appetizer."
Marjorie rose from the swing and brushed down her wrinkled linen skirt.

"Don't need an appetizer. I'm famished now. Lead me on. I may lose half
a pound. That will be something attempted, something done, as our friend
H. W. Longfellow sagely remarks in the 'Village Blacksmith.'"

Without further lingering the four girls left the veranda and started
down the drive at a swift walk. The Wenderblatt's residence was not far
from the campus, but the sky was growing more threatening.

"It begins to look as though we would have to run all the way back to
the Hall or get a ducking," warned Jerry as they neared Lillian's home.
"We can't stop to talk, girls. We had better wait for Ka