creation room, but she found
nobody there except Chrissie, who sat writing at the table.

"I've a lovely idea, Chris!" she began. "You know that word we chose,
'cough', 'fee'--'coffee'; well, we'll have the first syllable in a Red
Cross Hospital, and the second in an employment bureau, and a girl can
ask if there's any fee to pay; and the whole word can be a scene in a
drawing-room. Chrissie, do stop writing and listen!"

Her chum shut up her geometry textbook rather reluctantly. She was
putting in extra work before the exams, and was loath to be interrupted.
She kept on drawing angles on her blotting-paper almost automatically.

"They'd be ripping if we could get the right properties," she agreed.
"Could we manage beds enough to look like a hospital? Yes, those small
forms would do, I dare say. The employment bureau will be easy enough.
The drawing-room scene would be no end, if we could make it up-to-date.
I ought to be an officer home on leave, and you're my long-lost love,
and we have a dramatic meeting over the coffee cups!"

"Gorgeous! Oh, we must do it! Shall I droop tenderly into your arms?
What shall I wear?"

"Some outdoor costume, with a picturesque hat. I must have a uniform, of
course."

"A brown waterproof with a leather belt?"

Chrissie pulled a face.

"I hate these make-ups out of girls' clothes! I'd like a real genuine
uniform to do the thing properly."

"But we couldn't get one!"

"Yes, we could. It's your exeat on Wednesday, and you might borrow your
brother's. He's in bed, and can't wear it."

"What a ripping notion!" gasped Marjorie. "But I couldn't carry a great
parcel back to school. Norty'd see it, and make one of her stupid
fusses."

"We must smuggle it, then. Look here, when you go to your aunt's make
the clothes into a parcel and leave it just inside the gate. I've a
friend at Whitecliffe, and I'll manage to write to her and ask her to
call and take it, and drop it over the wall at Brackenfield for me."

"Won't Norty ask where we got it, when she sees you wearing it?"

"She might be nasty about it beforehand, but I don't believe she'd say
anything on the evening, especially if the charade goes off well. It's
worth risking."

"You'd look ripping in Leonard's uniform! Of course it would be too
big."

"That wouldn't matter. Will you get it for me?"

"Right oh!"

"Good. Then I'll write to my friend."

"You're writing now!" chuckled Marjorie, for Chrissie had been
scribbli