eted by a chorus of impatient
"sh-sh" as Lucile went on:

"But this time I am as sure as I can ever be of anything that my plans
won't fall through. I expect to be in Burleigh by the twenty-fifth."

"Oh, think of it! That's day after to-morrow!" Margaret exclaimed,
rapturously.

"That's what it is," Jessie agreed.

"Go on, Lucy; what more has she to say?" demanded another of the girls,
and Lucile went on with her reading.

The rest of the letter contained descriptions of her travels and all she
had seen, ending up with: "When I see my girls, I will tell you all I
have been writing now, and a great deal more, and will expect to hear
more fully than they have been able to write me all that has happened to
them during the last six months. I am counting the hours till I see you
all again. Good-by till then, dear girls. Your own loving guardian."

"That's all," Lucile finished. "Now we know when she's coming."

"Isn't she dear, and didn't the whole thing sound just like her?" cried
Jessie.

"Exactly," agreed Evelyn, and then added, "If she is counting the hours
till she sees us, I wonder what we'll be doing."

"We'll be making the hours count," said Lucile.

"Good for you, Lucy; that's what I call efficiency," cried Marjorie.
"Make time work for us."

"Yes, but how are we going to do it?" said Ruth, distrustfully.

"I'll tell you," Lucile answered. "I thought that we ought to give our
guardian a surprise when she comes. She hasn't been here for so long, and
we ought to make it something she will remember."

"You've thought of something, Lucy; I can tell that," cried Jessie.
"Suppose you let us know about it."

"Go ahead, Lucy--we'll let you think for all the rest of us," Marjorie
suggested. "You can do it better, anyway."

"How very kind of you!" mocked Lucile. "I appreciate your generosity
immensely."

"Go on; tell us your idea, Lucy," urged Margaret. "Never mind her."

"Well, it was only this, and if any one has anything better to offer, I'm
only too glad to hear about it. I thought that you girls could all dress
up in your ceremonial costumes. In the meantime, I'll have a fire made in
the living-room fireplace and then I'll go to meet her."

"And leave us home?" Evelyn interrupted.

"Exactly," said Lucile, firmly. "As I said before, I'll go to meet her
and bring her here. Then I'll take her upstairs to get her things off and
tell her you girls will be here right away."

"And we're to be hidden in