time shall
we be ready--at four o'clock this afternoon? All right. And we shall
prepare some luncheon? Yes, all right, we'll be most happy to do so.
Good-bye."

Then to the porch ran Norma, crying to Gracie, excitedly: "Oh, sister,
Mrs. Jackson has invited us--you and me--to go with her and Flora and
Tommy for a long automobile ride. We are to stop on the beach--down at
Blake Island--and have a picnic supper by moonlight. We'll return home
about nine o'clock. Won't that be splendid? I know mamma will be so
happy to have us go, so I accepted for both of us. Mamma won't be home
for over an hour. And we are to start at four. It is now two o'clock.
We'll have to be stirring if we are ready when Mrs. Jackson calls. And
she must not be kept waiting."

[Illustration: "_We are invited for a long automobile ride_."]

"Are we to carry luncheon?" asked Gracie, lazily, not making any sign of
getting out of the hammock.

"Yes. Mrs. Jackson said we'd carry luncheon. She said she would take
sandwiches, cookies, and jelly. We can supply something else. Suppose we
have some boiled eggs. And I'll run to our favorite baker's and get a
nice cake--one of those delicious white ones, you know. Won't it be
splendid?"

"What shall you wear?" asked Gracie, now bestirring herself a bit.

"My pink lawn, I guess," replied Norma. "But I shall have to hurry, for
the eggs must be boiled at once, so as to give them time to get cold and
solid in the ice box. Otherwise, they wouldn't be fit for the lunch
basket."

And away ran busy Norma to the kitchen to put the eggs to boil.

Within a short time Norma had the eggs nicely boiled and cooling in the
ice box while she was getting her frock, shoes, hat, and other
accessories to her afternoon attire, laid out all ready to wear.

But Gracie was not quite so energetic. She had left the hammock and gone
to her own room to look over her frocks to see which one might be fit to
wear. A blue dimity was selected as being in the best wearing condition,
but in looking it over she found a rent in the skirt and two buttons
gone. "Oh, just my luck," she declared petulantly. "I never have a frock
in shape to put right on. I do believe I'll ask mamma--if she has
returned--to sew on the buttons and mend the rent. Let me see--the lace
is all torn in places on my white lawn. The buttons are off my checked
batiste. Yes, this blue dimity will be the best." So taking it in her
arms, she went down stairs to the sitting