h her, girls. How spick and span you all look," she
added, as they trooped past, behind Miss Chilton, most of them in
freshly laundered shirt-waist suits, for the Indian summer day was as
warm and sunny as June.

"It would be just about Gay's luck to run into a watering-cart or lean
up against a freshly painted door, in that pretty pongee suit," she
thought, watching them out of sight.

But for once Gay's lucky star was in the ascendant. The trip to the
library left her without spot or wrinkle, and as she followed Miss
Chilton into the restaurant she could not help smiling at her reflection
in the mirror. It looked so trim and neat.

The restaurant was crowded. The waiters rushed back and forth, balancing
their great trays on their finger-tips in a reckless way that made Gay
dodge every time they passed.

"Oh, you needn't laugh," she exclaimed, when some one jokingly called
attention to her. "I'm born to trouble; and I have a feeling that
something is going to happen before the day is over."

Something did happen almost immediately, but not to Gay. Two of the
pompous coloured men collided just as they were passing Miss Chilton's
table. One tray dropped to the floor with a tremendous crash of breaking
dishes. The other was caught dexterously in mid-air, but not before its
contents had turned a somersault and wrought ruin all around it. A bowl
of tomato soup splashed over Lloyd's immaculate shirt-waist and ran in
two long red streaks across the shoulders of her duck jacket, which she
had hung on her chair-post. Her little gasp of dismay was followed by
one from Maud Minor, whose dainty gray silk waist was spattered
plentifully with coffee.

There was a profusion of apologies from the waiters and a momentary
confusion as the wreck was cleared away. In the midst of it, Miss
Chilton was pleased and gratified to hear a low-pitched voice at the
table behind her say: "Those are Warwick Hall girls. I recognize their
chaperon, but I would have known them anywhere from the ladylike way
they treated the affair. So quiet and self-controlled, not a bit of fuss
or excitement, and it probably means that the day's outing will be
spoiled for two of them."

The girls proceeded with their dessert, but Miss Chilton sat
considering.

"If you girls were only familiar with the city," she said at last,
looking at her watch, "I could let you go to some shop and get new
shirt-waists, and you could meet me at my friend's afterward. But e