dded,
"You might have had the tea-things removed, Susy. I will make myself a
fresh cup."

Susy stood still for a moment. Temptation tugged at her heart. Her
mother certainly required if ever a mother did require a daughter. But
the Wild Irish Girls--surely they were pining for her in the distance!

"I wish I could help you, mother. I would if I hadn't promised to go
out. If you will give me the latchkey I can let myself in. You needn't
wait up; I promise to lock up carefully."

"Very well, dear," said Mrs. Hopkins.

She did not reproach Susy; that was not her way. She put a little kettle
on the gas-stove, fetched a clean cup and saucer, and presently sat down
to her belated meal.

Susy dashed upstairs. She put on her hat and jacket, snatched up a pair
of gloves, and the next moment was out of the house.

"Free at last," she thought. "But, oh, what an evening I have had! I
must say it is horrid to be poor. Now, if I was rich like Kathleen,
wouldn't I have a gay time of it? Poor dear mother should drive in a
carriage, and I'd ride on my pony by her side; and Tom should be a
public school boy. There'd be no horrid shop then, and no horrid women
coming in for ha'p'orths and penn'orths of paper."

But as she ran through the autumn night-air she felt that, after all,
there was something good in life. Her pulses, which had been languid
enough in the stuffy little parlor at the back of the shop, now galloped
fiercely. She arrived two or three minutes after nine, but still in
fairly good time to see a number of dark heads surrounding a bright
light. This light was caused by two lamps which had been placed on the
ground in the old quarry; Kathleen had brought them herself in a hamper.
She had managed to buy them that day, and had smuggled them off without
any one being the wiser. A large bottle of crystalline oil accompanied
the lamps. Kathleen, who had dressed lamps for pleasure at home, knew
quite well how to manage them, and when Susy appeared they stood at each
end of a wide patch of light. Kathleen herself was in the midst of the
light, and the other girls clustered round the edge.

"Isn't it scrumptious?" said Kate Rourke.--"Oh, is that you, Susy
Hopkins? You are late."

"Yes, I know I am. It's a wonder I could come at all," said Susy.

"Ruth Craven hasn't come yet," said another voice.

"Yes, here she is," cried a third, and Ruth came and stood at the edge
of the patch of light.

Kathleen flung off her hat,