o get to you
that I didn't stop to pick it up. And all my clothes need mending. That
good waist is all ripped where you yanked the button off, Evelyn----"

"Oh, I did not," began Evelyn, hotly.

"All right. I don't care who did it; the fact remains that it is torn and
I haven't mended it, and I haven't written half as much as I ought to,
and--well, if I told you everything, I wouldn't get through to-day."

"And I use slang from morning to night, and I chewed a piece of gum that
Phil gave me right out in the street, too," began Evelyn, miserably.

"Oh, Phil!" said Jessie, disdainfully. "He would ruin anybody's manners."

"All the more credit, then, in being good while he's around," laughed
Lucile. "But, seriously, girls, don't you think it would be a good plan
to make up our minds to act just the same all the time as though our
guardian were in the next room?"

"Let's" said the girls. And so, with no more form or ceremony, the simple
little compact was made, but it had taken firm and solid root,
nevertheless, in the girls' hearts.

"Hooray, people; here comes the sun!" cried Phil, bursting in upon them
with a box of candy and a radiant smile. "I just waylaid Dad and asked
him what was up if it cleared this afternoon, and he said, 'Westminster
Abbey, Trafalgar Square, a look at the Thames, an auto ride.' Hooray!"

The girls ran to the window, and, sure enough, the sun was beginning to
shine, feebly and mistily, to be sure, but yet unmistakably.

They hugged each other joyfully and began to gather up their scattered
belongings.

"It must be nearly lunch time," sang Lucile. "We'll go up and see what we
look like and change our dresses and----"

"Then for the fun," finished Evelyn.

"I say, Jessie, here's the candy I promised you," Phil called after her.

Jessie turned at the door and eyed the tempting box longingly.

"I'd love to, Phil," she said, "but I can't. Thanks just as much. I would
spoil my lunch," she added, lamely, making a hasty retreat.

"Well, of all the----" began Phil, at a loss to understand such insanity.
Then, with a shrug of the shoulders, he voiced the eternal and
oft-repeated masculine query:

"Aren't girls the limit?"

CHAPTER XVII

THE GLORY OF THE PAST

With light hearts and lighter feet the girls danced from the dark hotel
to the sun-flooded street. Umbrellas had been down for half an hour and
in some places the sidewalks were already partly dry. Smiles and friendly
no