"Carried unanimously!" replied the girls.
"If you'll offer us tea again!" murmured Bess.
"Don't be greedy! No, to-day must content you. We can't have such an upset and spread to-morrow, or Miss Cartwright may put a veto on teas altogether. By the by, this isn't of course an Alliance meeting, but a few of us delegates are here. How is the 'Dramatic' getting on, Lottie?"
"Quite tolerably," replied Lottie; "but you know I'm ambitious. We're giving a united performance at Christmas with the High School and the Anglo-German in aid of the Children's Hospital. It's quite a good piece, a sort of Twelfth Night revels and mummers all combined. It's to be held at the Exchange Assembly Hall. I wish it had been in the Shakespeare Theatre, then we might have had an orchestra with it. I'm afraid the piano will sound so horribly thin and inadequate in that huge room. Somehow these things need a band to make them go. It isn't half festive without."
"Is the music written for the piano?" enquired Mildred.
"Yes, and it's really quite pretty."
"It would be fairly easy for strings, I dare say?"
"What do you mean?"
"I have an idea, but I'll think it over, and tell it to you to-morrow."