IN THE DORMITORY
After a survey of several minutes of the dark and seemingly innocent room, the guardian of school discipline seemed satisfied, closed the door, and her footsteps died away at the end of the hall.
If she could have heard the bursts of smothered laughter as the lights were turned on and Laura and Bess, almost exhausted by their efforts to keep up that steady breathing, tumbled from the bed and the others rose from their hiding places and shook and stretched themselves to get the cramps out of their limbs!
"That was a close call," gurgled Nan, breathless with suppressed laughter, while Grace asked chokingly:
"How did you ever do that sleeping act so perfectly and keep it up so long?"
"Just genius," answered Laura complacently. "I got so in the spirit of it that I came near snoring."
"Is that so?" scoffed Rhoda. "Strange that we never noticed it before."
"Live and learn," replied Laura, nonchalantly. "The explanation is simple. Just lack of perception. 'Ye have eyes and ye see not.'"
"For pity's sake, keep still, you two," said Bess. "We have too many things to talk about to listen to repartee, even to such brilliant specimens."
"Snubbed!" groaned Laura, as she lifted the last bonbon from the box.
"Here, greedy," said Rhoda. "I saw that candy first."
"Well, I ate it first," grinned Laura tantalizingly.
"Will you girls keep still?" cried Bess despairingly. "I want to find out what Grace is going to wear."
"Yes, sweetheart," said Rhoda meekly, as she flopped down into the nearest seat at hand. "That is really a most interesting and all-important question, and we will come to that anon. But first I want to remark that I feel as though we had been nearly caught at a regular spread."
"Spread! Where have I heard that word before?" exclaimed Laura dramatically. "Isn't it time we had a regular one? I tell you what, girls, let's celebrate by having a real honest-to-goodness spread. There's a reason."
"As if you ever needed a reason for having a spread!" laughed Bess. "But I second the motion."
"I'm expecting a box from home any minute," said Rhoda, "and I'll donate it to the cause."
"I'll furnish the fruit," Grace offered.
"Dandy!" exclaimed Laura. "Put me down for cocoa and milk and sugar. Will you supply the sandwiches, Nan?"
"I'm willing to furnish the sandwiches," agreed Nan, a little doubtfully. "But do you think we'd better have it just now?"
"Oh, come on, Nan," urged Laura. "Be a sport. Isn't Grace worth a chance?"
And Nan, unwilling to spoil the others' sport, assented, though with some inward misgiving.
"Can't we go to town to-morrow after recitations, and get the things?" Bess proposed.
"O. K.," acquiesced Laura contentedly. "And now to return to the vital question. What, Grace darling, are you going to wear at Palm Beach?"
"I'd like to get new gowns and things," Grace replied; "but it's hard to get summer clothes in winter. Of course, I've got last summer's things."
"I'd feel that I was pretty well fitted out already if I had your last summer's things," observed Laura.
"I should say as much!" agreed Rhoda. "The idea of Grace Mason needing a new summer outfit. What's the objection to that lovely crêpe de chine that made me green with envy when you wore it last summer?"
"Or that voile with the heliotrope flowers?" supplemented Nan. "Or the white net with the embroidered flounces?"
"Or that blue taffeta that you looked so stunning in at the garden party?" said Rhoda.
"Or the old rose georgette with the touch of black velvet, to say nothing of half a dozen others?" added Bess.
"Since you are resurrecting the old gowns so vigorously," laughed Grace, "I begin to think I may get through without so many new things after all, especially as the old gowns will be new to the people I shall meet at Palm Beach. Of course mother will have a dressmaker, and she'll alter and freshen up and make a few new things. But she can't do such a very great deal in the little time from now to the holidays. If it was any other place than Palm Beach, I wouldn't even think about dress. But it's such a very swell place, you know, girls, and I don't want to feel out of place while I'm there. Of course you know how I feel."
"Sure we do," Laura assured her. "But I'll guarantee that with what you have and what you'll be able to add, you'll feel very much in it, even at Palm Beach."
"And now, ladies," said Rhoda, "that the all-important subject of dress is disposed of, I move that Nan pass around for our refreshment those fine Florida oranges I see on the table there."
Nan laughingly complied, and Bess suddenly exclaimed as she peeled the rind from her orange:
"This reminds me, Grace. How will it seem to be walking through lovely orange groves with the beautiful golden fruit showing between the leaves?"
"And," Nan supplemented, "to be able to pick and eat the oranges with the warmth of the sun upon them! I have heard that the flavor is very different from what we are accustomed to."
"And imagine," Rhoda added longingly, "not only being able to feast on the delicious oranges but to have the fragrance of the wonderful blossoms all around you as you walk through the groves."
"Oh, girls, girls!" cried Grace, "you make me impatient to be there at this very minute. There's one thing," she added quizzically, "if no other orange blossoms ever come my way, I'll at least have had those."
"No need for you to worry about that," returned Laura, "with that young Palm Beach millionaire—or is it billionaire?—waiting to greet you and some day crown that fair brow of thine with fragrant orange blooms. Methinks I can already smell their fragrance and hear the strains of the justly celebrated wedding march of Mendelssohn."
"What vivid imaginations some people have," returned Grace calmly.
"Oh, dear," sighed Nan musingly, "doesn't it seem a shame that everybody can't have wonderful things? If only a very small part of the surplus wealth could be divided among those who are struggling just to live, what a different world this would be. It doesn't seem right that so many people should have everything and others have little else than work and worry. Those people at Palm Beach have wealth, luxury, everything to make life splendid, while others have so little. Things certainly are uneven in this world. Take Mrs. Bragley, for instance."
"I tell you what we'll do, girls," said Grace impulsively. "We'll make a spread for Mrs. Bragley as well as for ourselves."
"Fine!" ejaculated Rhoda. "We'll fill a basket with canned meat and some potatoes and——"
"No, no," interrupted Grace impulsively, "not those things. Let's give her a real spread with something out of the ordinary."
"Jellies," proposed Bess.
"Glass jars of imported strawberries and cherries," suggested Laura.
"A great bunch of those wonderful California grapes," contributed Grace.
"And some Florida oranges," added Nan.
"Great!" commented Grace. "When shall we do it?"
"Let's see," mused Nan. "We have our Latin class at two. We'll be through by three. Let's make it three-thirty o'clock to-morrow."
"I'm afraid you'll have to go without me," said Grace. "I promised mother I'd answer her letter right away, so I'll have to get that off to-morrow."
"I can't go either," said Laura. "I have those French exercises to make up before to-morrow night. I'd like to go, but I suppose I can't with that to do."
"Then, Bess," said Nan, "you and Rhoda and I will be a committee of three to wait on Mrs. Bragley to-morrow."
"Girls, isn't it warm in here?" questioned Laura.
"Warm? With the heating plant broken down?" queried Nan.
"It feels warm and I'm going to open a window," went on Laura, and, suiting the action to the word, she shoved up a window that was handy.
"Br-r-r!" came from several of the others.
"My, but that's cold!"
"We'll all get sick!"
"I know a way to fix Laura!" cried Rhoda, and, as she spoke, the girl from Rose Ranch leaned out of the window and reached upward.
"What are you going to do?" asked Bess.
"Get an icicle for her," answered Rhoda, and a moment later brought to view an icicle she had broken away from a projection above the window. The icicle was all of a foot and a half long and an inch or more in thickness.
"No, you don't!" cried Laura, leaping away as Rhoda came after her with the bit of ice. "Don't you dare to put that thing down my neck!"
"It will cool you off, Laura," said Rhoda; but just then she slipped and went down, shattering the icicle into fragments.
"No more noise," whispered Bess, closing the window.
At that moment, Nan's clock, sounding the first stroke of midnight, startled the girls.
"The hour indeed waxeth late," whispered Laura, and vanished.
One by one the others noiselessly followed. There was the almost inaudible sound of softly closing doors, and quiet reigned over Lakeview Hall.
In Nan's room for the second time that night there was the sound of measured breathing, but this time it was genuine.