lly-hack," stormed Rosalie.
"Suppose we did shout and screech? It's Saturday night and we have a
right to if we like. But what under the sun did Mrs. Vincent want of
you, Peggy?"

"Oh, nothing very serious," answered Peggy, smiling in a way which set
Rosalie's curiosity a-galloping.

"Yes, what _did_ she want?" demanded Polly, turning to look up at Peggy.

"Can't tell anybody _now_. You'll all know after Thanksgiving," answered
Peggy, wagging her head in the negative.

"Oh, please tell us! Ah, do! We won't breathe a living, single word!"
cried the chorus.

"Uh-mh!" murmured Peggy in such perfect imitation of old Mammy that
Polly laughed outright.

"Aren't you even going to tell Polly?" asked Rosalie, who had arrived at
some very definite conclusion regarding these friends, for Rosalie was
far from slow if at times rather more self-assertive than the average
young lady is supposed to be.

For answer Peggy broke into a little air from a popular comic opera
running just then in Washington and to which Captain Stewart had taken
his little party only a few weeks before:

"And what is right for Tweedle-dum is wrong for Tweedle-dee," sang Peggy
in her sweet contralto voice, Polly following in her bird-like whistle.

The little ruse worked to perfection. The girls forgot all about Peggy's
"call down," as a summons to Mrs. Vincent's study was banned, and had a
rapture over Polly's whistling and Peggy's singing, nor were they
satisfied until a dozen airs had been given in the girl's very best
style. Then came the story of the concerts at home, and Polly's
whistling at the Masquerader's Show when Wharton Van Nostrand fell ill,
and a dozen other vivid little glimpses of the life back in Severndale
and up in "Middie's Haven" until their listeners were nearly wild with
excitement.

"And they are to have a house party there during the holidays, girls.
Think of that!" cried Helen.

"Honest?" cried Lily Pearl, leaning forward with clasped hands, while
even Juno, the superior, became animated and remarked:

"Really! I dare say you will choose your guests with extreme care as to
their appeal to the model young men they are likely to meet at
Annapolis, for I don't doubt your aunt, Mrs. Harold, is a most
punctilious chaperon."

"Juno's been eating hunks of the new Webster's Dictionary, girls. That's
how she happens to have all those long words so near the top. They got
stuck going down so they come up easy," interjected Ros