reak the
strings!"

"I can't think why you need so many empty chocolate boxes," commented
Aveline, sweeping up treasures with a ruthless hand. "Your drawers
will be so full they won't shut. Throw half of them away!"

"No, no! I always keep them to remind me of the people who gave them
to me. You mustn't throw any of them away. They're chock-full of
memories."

"Rather have them chock-full of chocs, myself!" remarked Morvyth
dryly. "Fauvette, you're interesting and pretty--when you don't cry
(for goodness' sake look at your red eyes in the glass!); but you're
as sentimental as an Early Victorian heroine. You ought to wear a
bonnet and a crinoline, and carry a little fringed parasol, and talk
about your 'papa'! If you don't get safely engaged to an officer
before you're out of your teens, you'll turn into one of those faded
females who bore one with sickly reminiscences of their past, and
spend the remainder of your life pampering a pet poodle. Here, I've
mended two pairs of stockings for you."

"And I've done three pairs," said Raymonde, folding up the articles in
question and putting them in her friend's second long drawer. "We're
getting on. Kathy, have you finished the bodices? We'll soon have you
straightened up, Baby, and if Mademoiselle----Oh!"

Raymonde's sudden ejaculation was caused by a vision of no less a
person than Miss Gibbs, who was standing in the doorway of the
dormitory regarding the sewing party in some astonishment.

"What are you girls doing here?" she demanded, making a bee-line for
them among the beds.

Nobody answered, and for a moment or two blank dismay spread itself
over the countenances of the Mystics. Then Raymonde's lucky star came
to the rescue, and popped an inspiration into her head.

"You were telling us in Social History class yesterday, Miss Gibbs,
about the necessity of women co-operating in their work if they are
ever to command a higher scale of pay," she explained glibly; "so we
thought we'd better begin to put our principles into practice.
Fauvette had fallen into arrears, and was in danger of--er--trouble,
so we all came just to boost her up to standard, and let her
get a fair start again. It's on the basis of a Women's Union
or--or--Freemasons. We thought we were bound to help one another."

Miss Gibbs was not a remarkably humorous person, but on this occasion
the corners of her mouth were distinctly observed to twitch. She
mastered the weakness instantly, however, a