aura, "Amanda probably hinted around till the boys
couldn't help inviting her. Look--oh, look!" she cried in such a
different tone that the girls stared at her. "The sun!" she said. "Oh,
it's going to clear up, it's going to clear up!"

"Well, you needn't step on my blue silk for all that," complained Vi, as
Laura caught an exultant heel in the latter's dress.

"Don't be grouchy, darling," said Laura, all good-nature again now that
the sun had appeared. "My, but we're going to have a good time!"

"I'll say we are," sang out Billie, as she gayly spread out the pink
flowered dress upon the bed. "And we're not going to let anybody spoil it
either--even Eliza Dilks and Amanda Peabody."

The girls had an hour in which to get ready, and they were ready and
waiting before half that time was up. The Three Towers Hall carryall was
to call for the girls who had been lucky enough to receive invitations
from the cadets of Boxton Military Academy, and as the girls, looking
like gay-colored butterflies in their summery dresses, gathered on the
steps of the school there were so many of them that it began to look as
if the carryall would have to make two trips.

"If we have to go in sections I wonder whether we'll be in the first or
second," Vi was saying when Billie grasped her arm.

"Look," she cried, merriment in her eyes and in her voice. "Here come
Amanda and Eliza. Did you ever see anything so funny--and awful--in your
life?"

For Amanda and her chum were dressed in their Sunday best--poplin dresses
with a huge, gorgeous flower design that made the pretty, delicate-colored
dresses of the other girls look pale and washed-out by comparison. If
Amanda's and Eliza's desire was to be the most noticeable and talked-of
girls on the parade, they were certainly going to succeed. The talk had
begun already!

However, the arrival of the carryall cut short the girls' amusement, and
there was great excitement and noise and giggling as the girls--all who
could get in, that is--clambered in.

There were about a dozen left over, and these the driver promised to come
back and pick up "in a jiffy."

"I'm feeling awfully nervous," Laura confided to Billie. "I never
expected to be nervous; did you?"

"Yes, I did," Billie answered truthfully. "I've been nervous ever since
the boys invited us. It's because it's all so new, I guess. We've never
been to anything like this before."

"I'm frightened to death when I think of meeting Captain S