one with goggles that we've dubbed the
'medicine chest,' and her chum who wears all the rainbow colors whenever
and wherever she appears?"

"Surely, but what are their names?" inquired a pale, sickly-looking girl
who had joined the group.

"Don't know their names," said Betty, "but I heard Miss Rainbow telling
her friend that she intended to wear 'something very dressy' to-night,
so I'm eager to see her. My! Here she comes now."

"Good gracious!" gasped Valerie, under her breath.

With head very high, Patricia rushed, rather than walked across the
room, until she reached the center, when she stopped as if to permit
every one to obtain a good view of her costume. Her bold manner made her
more absurd even than her dress which was, as Betty Chase declared,
"_surprising_!"

Turning slowly around to the right, then deliberately to the left, she
appeared to feel herself a paragon of fashion, a model dressed to give
the pupils of Glenmore a chance to observe something a bit finer than
they had ever seen before.

As Patricia slowly turned, Arabella, like a satellite, as slowly
revolved about her.

Who could wonder that a wave of soft laughter swept over the room. It
was evident that vanity equalling that of the peacock moved Patricia to
turn about that every one might see both front and back of her dress,
but no one could have guessed why Arabella in a plain brown woolen dress
kept pace with her silly friend.

It was not vanity that kept droll little Arabella moving. No, indeed.

Thus far, Arabella had made no new acquaintances.

As she entered the reception-room with Patricia she saw only a sea of
strange faces, and with a wild determination at least to have Patricia
to speak to, she trotted around her, that she might not, at any moment,
find herself talking to Patricia's back.

That surely would be awkward, she thought.

Patricia's dress was a light gray silk, tastefully made, and had she
been content to wear it as it had been sent to her from New York, she
would have looked well-dressed, and no one would have made comments upon
her appearance.

The soft red girdle gave a touch of color, but not nearly enough to
please Patricia.

At the village store she had purchased ribbons of many colors, from
which she had made bows or rosettes of every hue, and these she had
tacked upon her slippers. Her hair was tied with a bright blue ribbon,
and over the shoulders of her blouse she had sewed pink and yellow
ribbons.