ould not
permit her to go to any place where she would meet the accusing scorn of
Constance's blue eyes. Then, too, she had still another motive in
attending the party. She had always looked upon Lawrence Armitage with
eyes of favor. He had never paid her a great deal of attention, but he
had shown her less since the advent of Constance Stevens in Sanford.
She resolved to show him that she was far more clever and likable than
the quiet girl who had taken such a strong hold on his boyish interest,
and with that end in view Mignon planned to make her reinstatement a
sweeping success.

Friday afternoon was a lost session, so far as study went, to the
Sanford girls who were to make up the feminine portion of Marjorie's
party.

"Good gracious, I thought half-past three would never come!" grumbled
Jerry Macy in Marjorie's ear as they filed decorously through the
corridor. "Let's make a quick dash for the locker-room. I've a pressing
engagement with the hair-dresser and I'm dying to get through with it
and sweep down to dinner in my new silver net party dress. It's a dream
and makes me look positively thin. You won't know me when you see me."

"You're not the only one," put in Muriel Harding. "You won't be one,
two, three when I appear to-night in all my glory."

"Listen to the conceited things," laughed Irma Linton. "'I won't speak
of myself,' as H. C. Anderson beautifully puts it."

"Who's he?" demanded Jerry. "I know every boy in Sanford High, but I
never heard of him."

A shout of laughter greeted her earnest assertion.

"Wake up, Jerry," dimpled Susan Atwell. "H. C. stands for Hans
Christian. Now does the light begin to break?"

"Oh, you make me tired," retorted Jerry. "Irma did that on purpose.
That's worse than my favorite trap about letting it rain in Spain. How
was I to know what she meant?"

"That's all because you don't cultivate literary tastes," teased Muriel.

"I do cultivate them," grinned Jerry. "I've read the dictionary through
twice, without skipping a page!"

"It must have been a pocket edition," murmured Marjorie.

"Stop teasing me or I'll get cross and not come to your party,"
threatened Jerry.

"You mean nothing could keep you away," laughed Irma.

"You're right. Nothing could. I'll be there, clad in costly raiment, to
spur the reform party on to deeds of might."

"Do come early, all of you," urged Marjorie as she paused at her corner
to say good-bye.

"We'll be there," chorused the q