do!--do, Maggie darling!" said Merry Cardew.

Maggie at once agreed; and Miss Johnson said, "Now, if you will put
them all back in their boxes I will take them and lock them into the
safe myself. I shouldn't have an easy moment if I thought such
valuable things were in one of your school-trunks."

"Oh!" said Maggie, looking up with flushed cheeks and bright eyes,
"please--please let me keep them until after our party. Then we will
consult Mrs. Ward, and she will tell me what to do."

"If you must keep them, then, Maggie," said Miss Johnson, "you had
better have them in your own bedroom. They would be at least safe
there. Put them into your locked drawer, dear; I think it will hold
both these boxes."

"Thank you very much," said Maggie. She put the ten bracelets into
their tin box, and the necklets and other curios into the other,
locked each, and took them upstairs. "It would never, never do," she
said to herself, "for me to lose control of these precious things. I
am almost sorry now that I allowed the girls to tempt me to show
them."

After a few minutes she came downstairs. Her stepfather's allowance of
pocket-money was certainly not ample, and she knew that at the party
which was to be so specially distinguished she must give, if she
wished to keep up her prestige in the school, a lion's share towards
the expenses. There was a quaint little brooch in one of her boxes
containing one large ruby and set with diamonds which she intended to
sell in order to provide herself with funds. But what use would any of
her treasures be if they were consigned to the safe at Aylmer House?

After a great deal of consultation, it was resolved that the girls
were to meet in their own special sitting-room at four o'clock, where
tea and light refreshments were to be provided by Queen Maggie and her
subjects. Afterwards they were to play games, have recitations, and
amuse themselves in different ways until five o'clock; when a curtain
which would be put across a portion of the room would be raised, and
tableaux vivants, in which Maggie, Kathleen, and both the Tristram
girls, who were all adaptable for this purpose, were to take special
parts. The tableaux were under the management of Janet Burns, who was
exceedingly clever, and had studied the scenes--which she took from
different episodes in Scott's novels--with great care. The rehearsing
for the tableaux was a little difficult, but this was done each
evening after tea, when Magg