l, and took her hand. "Come and sit here--here in the
midst of our circle. We have such a lot to say to you!"

"And I have a lot to say to you. But, dear me! how grand we are!"

Nancy's twinkling black eyes looked with mock approval at Verena's plain
but very neat gray dress, and at the equally neat costumes of the other
girls. Then finally she gazed long and pensively at Penelope, who, in an
ugly dress of brown holland, was looking back at her with eyes as black
and defiant as her own.

"May I ask," said Nancy slowly, "what has this nursery baby to do in the
midst of the grown-ups?"

"I'm not nursery," said Penelope, her face growing crimson; "I'm
schoolroom. Don't tell me I'm nursery, because I'm not. We're all
schoolroom, and we're having a right good time."

"Indeed! Then I may as well remark that you don't look like it. You look,
the whole nine of you, awfully changed, and as prim as prim can be.
'Prunes and prisms' wouldn't melt in your mouths. You're not half, nor
quarter, as nice as you were when I saw you last. I've just come home for
good, you know. I mean to have a jolly time at Margate by-and-by. And oh!
my boy cousins and my two greatest chums at school are staying with me
now at The Hollies. The girls' names are Amelia and Rebecca Perkins. Oh,
they're fine! Do give me room to squat between you girls. You are
frightfully stand-off and prim."

"Sit close to me, Nancy," said Verena. "We're not a bit changed to you,"
she added.

"Well, that's all right, honey, for I'm not changed to you. Even if I am
a very rich girl, I'm the sort to always cling to my old friends; and
although you are as poor as church mice, you are quite a good sort. I
have always said so--always. I've been talking a lot about you to Amelia
and Rebecca, and they'd give their eyes to see you. I thought you might
ask us all over."

"Oh! I daren't, Nancy," said Verena. "We are not our own mistresses now."

"Well, that's exactly what I heard," said Nancy. "Oh, how hot it is! Pen,
for goodness' sake run and fetch me a cabbage-leaf to fan my face."

Penelope ran off willingly enough. Nancy turned to the others.

"I sent her off on purpose," she said. "If we can't come to you, you must
come to us. We three girls at The Hollies, and my two boy cousins, Tom
and Jack, have the most daring, delightful scheme to propose. We want to
have a midnight picnic."

"Midnight picnic!" cried Verena. "But we can't possibly come, Nancy."

"My good gi