and after vainly trying to distinguish
objects through streaked and misty glass, the girls gave up and leaned
back with a sigh of tired but absolute content.

"Well, we're here, and still going," said Lucile, happily, feeling for
her friend's hands.

"We jolly well know that, my de-ar," came in sweet, falsetto tones from
Phil. "We ought to have no end of sport, you know; rippin', what-what!"

"Bally goose!" murmured Jessie.

The reproof that rose to Mrs. Payton's lips was drowned in a shout of
laughter.

CHAPTER XVI

THE RED-LETTER DAY

"Hang the luck!" ejaculated Phil, flinging aside his book in disgust.
"Here it is, our first day over, and look at it!" And, drawing aside the
light chintz curtains, he disclosed a view that was, to say the least,
very discouraging.

The rain came down in torrents, rebounding from the shining pavement and
the no less shining umbrellas of passing pedestrians, with vicious little
pops and hisses that sounded more like a storm of tiny daggers than of
raindrops. As time went on, instead of lightening, the sky had grown
murkier and murkier and darker and darker, until, in many parts of the
hotel, people had been forced to turn on the lights. Over and about
everything hung that moist, indefinably depressing atmosphere that makes
one rail at fate and long for the blessing of the sun and a clear day.

Such was Phil's enviable state of mind as he dropped the curtain and
slumped back into his chair with an impatient grunt.

"'Tis rather mean, isn't it?" drawled Jessie, dropping her book and
looking at the disconsolate Phil lazily. "You don't happen to have any
more of those candies around you anywhere, do you, Evelyn?" she queried.

"Hardly. How long do you think they last when you're around?" answered
Evelyn, without raising her eyes from the magazine she was reading.

With a quick movement, Jessie reached over and pulled the candy box
toward her before Evelyn could interfere.

"A-ha, I thought so!" she cried. "I was sure they couldn't all have
vanished so quickly, you unscrupulous--"

"Beg pardon!" interrupted Evelyn, blandly.

"Well, you are, anyway," Jessie maintained. "What do you mean, no more
left? Here are half a dozen at least."

"Well, you know you've eaten half a box already, Jessie," Evelyn was
beginning, severely, when Jessie interrupted.

"But, Evelyn, what else is there to do on a day like this?" she pleaded
plaintively. "We can't make any noise, for fea