"Wait!" she called, waving her gloves frantically to attract their attention as they looked back from the woodland gate.
"I have some news for you." She was almost breathless when she caught up with them.
"What do you think of this? Ida and Lloyd have had a falling out of some kind. Neither one will say what it's about, but they don't have anything more to do with each other, and Ida has resigned from the Shadow Club. She told me just now to tell you all that she couldn't come any more, and that we might as well invite somebody else to join in her place. She didn't give any reason for leaving, and you know when she puts on that dignified, grown-up air of hers, one doesn't feel at liberty to ask questions. I told her I was sorry, and started to beg her to change her mind, but she wouldn't listen; just smiled in a mournful sort of way as if she had lost her last friend, and hurried past me.
"I asked Betty if she knew what was the matter, and she said it must be a quarrel of some kind, for Lloyd was dreadfully unhappy. After she came back from Locust yesterday evening she threw herself across the bed and cried, and cried, and wouldn't tell what for. She wouldn't go down to supper, either, and afterward, when Betty fixed her something on the chafing-dish, she barely tasted it."
"We'll have a gay old club meeting to-morrow," said Katie, "with Ida gone and Lloyd in the dumps and Betty unable to come, on account of her cold—"
"And her head so full of the book she's writing that she can't take any interest in anything else," interrupted Kitty. "It's too bad that there's only half a club left. Three of us can't get enough things ready to have a fair by Easter."
"That isn't the worst of it," answered Katie. "The three of us alone never can get even with Mittie Dupong and carry out our hoodoo plot to punish her, because we are all outside of the seminary. I'm tired of having the girls laugh whenever they see me eating an apple and make remarks about C. D."
"And I'm tired of hearing everlastingly about that old valentine!" chimed in Kitty. "If the other girls won't help us I think we ought to act on Ida's suggestion and take in some new members who would."
"Lucy Smith would be glad to join in Ida's place," said Allison. "She rooms across the hall from Mittie, and she'd dare do anything that we would suggest."
"And Retta Long's room is just above, and she's a good friend of ours," added Kitty. "Let's talk it over with Betty and Lloyd as soon as we get back to the seminary after dinner, and if they're willing we'll swear in the new members at recess."