e excitement in the Chamber, Bab decided, but
neither she nor Ruth could exactly understand what was going on.
Both girls listened and watched the proceedings below them with
such intensity that they forgot all about Marjorie Moore and her
strange request.

A few moments later she dropped down into the vacant seat next to
Barbara. She looked more hurried and agitated than ever. Her hat was on
one side, and her coat collar was half doubled under. She was a little
paler from her trying experience of a few nights before, and an ugly
bruise showed over her temple. But she made no reference to her accident.

"I am sorry I am late," she whispered. "But come back here in the far
corner of the gallery with me. I want to talk with you just half a
minute. I am so busy I can't stay with you any longer. I just felt I must
see you, Miss Thurston, before you go to tea with Mrs. Wilson this
afternoon."

"Tea with Mrs. Wilson!" Bab ejaculated. "How did you know we were going
to Mrs. Wilson's tea? And has that anything to do with your message to
me?" Barbara did not speak in her usual friendly tones. She was getting
decidedly cross. It seemed to her that she had been under some one's
supervision ever since her arrival in Washington.

"Yes, it has, Miss Thurston," the newspaper girl replied quickly. "I want
to ask you something. Promise me you will grant no one a favor, no matter
who asks it of you to-day?"

Barbara flushed. "Why how absurd, Miss Moore. I really cannot make you
any such promise. It is too foolish."

"Foolish or not, you must promise me," Marjorie Moore insisted. Then she
turned earnestly to Ruth. "I know you have a great deal of influence with
your friend. If she will not agree to what I ask her, won't you make her
promise you this: She is not to consent to do a favor for any one this
afternoon, no matter how simple the favor seems to be. Do you
understand?"

Ruth looked at Marjorie Moore blankly, but something in the newspaper
girl's earnest expression arrested her attention.

"I don't see why you won't make Miss Moore the promise she begs of you,
Bab," Ruth argued. "It seems a simple thing she has asked you. And I
don't think it is very nice of you, dear, to refuse her, even though her
request does seem a little absurd to you."

"But won't you tell me why you ask me to be so exceedingly
unaccommodating, Miss Moore?" Bab retorted.

Marjorie Moore shook her head. "That's just the trouble. Again I can't
tell