d that no Frenchman would have guessed that they
were French.

"Don't I hear the frou-frou of silken skirts?" inquired Missy one
afternoon when she was in Tess's room, watching her friend comb the
golden tresses which hung in rich profusion about her shoulders.

"It's the mater," answered Tess. "She's dressed to pay some visits to
the gentry. Later she's to dine at the vicarage. She's ordered out the
trap, I believe."

"Oh, not the governess-cart?"

Yes, Tess said it WAS the governess-cart; and her answer was as solemn
as Missy's question.

It was that same "dinner" at the "vicarage"--in Cherryvale one dines at
mid-day, and the Presbyterian minister blindly believed he had invited
the O'Neills for supper--that gave Tess one of her most brilliant
inspirations. It came to her quite suddenly, as all true inspirations
do. The Marble Hearts would give a dinner-party!

The Marble Hearts were Missy's "crowd," thus named after Tess had joined
it. Of course, said Tess, they must have a name. A fascinating fount of
ideas was Tess's. She declared, now, that they MUST give a dinner-party,
a regular six o'clock function. Life for the younger set in Cherryvale
was so bourgeois, so ennuye. It devolved upon herself and Missy to
elevate it. So, at the next meeting of the crowd, they would broach the
idea. Then they'd make all the plans; decide on the date and decorations
and menu, and who would furnish what, and where the fete should be held.
Perhaps Missy's house might be a good place. Yes. Missy's dining room
was large, with the porch just outside the windows--a fine place for the
orchestra.

Missy listened eagerly to all the earlier features of the scheme--she
knew Tess could carry any point with the crowd; but about the last
suggestion she felt misgivings. Mother had very strange, old-fashioned
notions about some things. She MIGHT be induced to let Missy help give
an evening dinner-party, though she held that fifteen-year-old girls
should have only afternoon parties; but to be persuaded to lend her own
house for the affair--that would be an achievement even for Tess!

However miracles continue to happen in this cut-and-dried world. When
the subject was broached to Missy's mother with carefully considered
tact, she bore up with puzzling but heavenly equanimity. She looked
thoughtfully at the two girls in turn, and then gazed out the window.

"A six o'clock dinner-party, you say?" she repeated, her eyes apparently
fixed on