Marian wondered at Jane's devotion. After dinner he had a long
conversation with Dr. Morton and Ernest, and no teasing on Jane's part
could extract the faintest hint from either as to what it had been
about.

"It was about your going to Annapolis, I bet."

"Nope, you're a long way off. We didn't say anything more than what you
and Mother heard. Father's written to the Senator. Captain Clarke got
him all enthused; the Captain promised to write, too. But you'll never
guess the other, and it has something to do with you."

She had been obliged to give it up. Ernest had at length reached an age
where he could keep a secret. The exasperating part of it was that
Ernest was going over to Captain Clarke's every evening and she wasn't
asked once. Her pride was so hurt that she came near being sorry she had
gone to see the Captain.

The evening before the fateful twentieth, Mrs. Morton and Jane were
putting the last touches on the guest room and on Chicken Little's own
chamber, which Katy and Gertie were to share with her. The fresh fluted
muslin curtains were looped back primly. The guest room had been freshly
papered with a dainty floral design, in which corn flowers and wheat
ears clustered with faint hued impossible blossoms, known only to
designers. Both rooms looked fresh and cool and summery, and the windows
opening out upon the garden and orchard revealed also wide stretches of
the prairie beyond.

Chicken Little had re-arranged the furniture in her room at least six
times in a resolute endeavor to get the best possible effect. Marian had
given her a picture of some long stemmed pink roses that exactly matched
the buds in her paper, and she had begged an old Japanese fan from her
Mother. This was decorated with a remarkably healthy pink sunset on a
gray green ground, and she tacked it up as a finishing touch above the
bed lounge, which was destined to be a bone of contention among the
three little girls for the remainder of the summer. At first, not one of
the three was willing to be cast upon this desert island of a bed, while
the other two were whispering secrets in the big walnut four-poster. But
as the weather grew hotter, the advantages of sleeping alone became more
obvious, and they had to settle the matter by taking turns. Chicken
Little did her very best to make her room look like the Captain's, but
except for her Mother's concession of fresh white paint, a few books on
a shelf, and the foreign fan, it was ha