ns to their very
centers. At Captain Stewart's request, Mrs. Harold had sent unique
invitations to each of the girls soon after their return to school.
They were couched in the formal wording of an official invitation from a
battle ship of the fleet and created a sensation.

Natalie, Stella, Nelly, Rosalie, Juno and Marjorie were invited. Lily
Pearl's and Helen's attentions to Peggy and Polly having proved
abortive, they contrived ways and means of their own to reach the Land
o' Heart's Desire. Helen's old bachelor uncle, a queer, dull old
gentleman, whose mind was certainly _not_ active, and whom Helen could,
figuratively speaking, turn and twist about her little finger, was
persuaded to pass the holidays at Wilmot Hall. He knew a number of
people in Annapolis, so the path to a certain extent was cleared for
Lily Pearl and Helen, though they would have given up all the uncles in
Christendom to have been included in that house party. But half a loaf
is certainly better than no bread, and once at Annapolis they meant to
make the most of that half. So it was with no small degree of triumph
that they announced the fact that they, too, would be at the Christmas
hop. Just how they intended to manage it they did not disclose.
Sufficient unto the hour was to be the triumph thereof.

Captain Stewart arrived on Friday morning in time for luncheon and,
guileless man that he has already shown himself to be, promptly
offered to "convoy the two little cruisers to Annapolis." His offer was
accepted with so many gushing responses that the poor man looked about
as bewildered as a great St. Bernard which has inadvertently upset a
cage of humming birds, and finds them fluttering all about him. Lily and
Helen were of a different type from the girls he knew best, but he
accepted the situation gracefully and enjoyed himself hugely with the
others, even Marjorie blossoming out wonderfully under his genial
kindliness.

Isabel amused him immensely. Isabel was to spend her holiday in Boston,
_of course_, but was to meet a friend in Baltimore who would chaperone
the shrinking damsel safely to Mamma's protecting arms. Captain Stewart
would escort her to the Naval Academy Junction, from which point it
seemed perfectly safe to let her pursue the remaining half hour's
journey to Baltimore unattended. In the course of the journey from
Washington to the Junction Isabel elected to make some delayed notes in
her diary, greatly to the secret amusement