der whether it was just as
acceptable to God to have play mixed up with the religion as these
children were doing it.

"You must look out that your festivities don't get ahead of your
righteousness," she warned half laughingly; but Allison took her in
earnest.

"You're right there, Cloudy. That's one of the things we have to look
out for in frats. We have to see we don't have too many social things.
If we do, the marks suffer; and right away we lose ground. We'll have
to keep those Sunday meetings up to the mark--see, kid?--or the other
things will only bring in a lot of dead-wood that won't count. They
must come to the Sunday meetings, or they don't get invited to the
parties. That's the way we'll fix 'em."

"There's no use saying 'must,'" said Leslie wisely. "If you don't have
your meetings interesting, they won't come anyhow you fix it."

"That's a girl for you!" scorned Allison. "No loyalty in the whole
bunch. They've got to _like_ everything. Now, the real spirit is to
come and _make_ the meetings good, just because they're _your_
meetings. See, kid?"

"Yes, I see," snapped Leslie; "but I won't come to your old meetings
at all if you are going to talk that way about girls. I guess I've
always been loyal to everything, especially you, and I won't stand for
that!"

"Oh, I didn't mean you, kid; I was talking about girls in general,"
soothed the brother. "You're all right, of course. But those little
fluffy-ruffles that sat in the back seat, now, you'll have to teach
them what loyalty means. See?"

Finally the household settled to sleep.

The next day the little house saw little else done save the making of
marvellous dainty sandwiches in various forms and shapes.

Even Cherry entered into the work with zest, and Julia Cloud proved
herself rich in suggestion for different fillings, till great platters
of the finished product reposed in the big white refrigerator, neatly
tucked about with damp napkins to keep them from drying.

All that day Allison flew hither and yon in his car, carrying some
member of the committee on errands connected with the evening social.
Never had such a stir been made about a mere church social in all the
annals of the society. Every remotest member was hunted out and
persuaded to be present, and Allison agreed to go around in the
evening and pick up at least a dozen who had professed their inability
to get there alone. So the big blue car was enlisted in Christian
Endeavor servic