"I see. I also see the clock. It's time I changed these riding togs for a dress. I'll barely have time before the dinner gong sounds."
Jane rose from the chair she had briefly occupied while listening to Judith, and began hurriedly to remove her riding habit.
Quickly rearranging her thick, curling hair, she dived into the closet that held her own and Judith's dresses. Selecting a fur-trimmed frock of dark green broadcloth, she hastily got into it.
As she hooked it a little smile played about her lips. The news of Marian's loss already forgotten, Jane was again thinking of the pleasant little scene enacted in the boarding stable, where Firefly and Midnight now stood side by side.
"You must go down to the stable with us to-morrow and look Midnight over, Judy," she suddenly remarked, then went on with an enthusiastic description of Dorothy's new treasure.
While she thus dwelt at length upon Midnight's good points, in a room not far distant two girls were conducting a most confidential session.
"How long do you think we ought to wait before—well, you know?" Marian Seaton was asking.
"Oh, about three weeks, I should say," lazily returned Maizie Gilbert. "We'll have to go slowly. It will take three or four months to do the thing properly. If we rushed it, it wouldn't be half as effective as to take our time. What about Elsie?"
"We'll tell her about the dress business, but no more than that. She mustn't know a word about the rest. She has a frightful temper, you know. If she happened to get good and mad at me, she'd tell everything she knew to the very first person she ran across. She'll be properly shocked when she hears about the dress. We'll tell it to her as a great secret," planned Marian. "I won't say anything outright about the ring. I'll leave it to her to draw her own conclusions. She's rabid about Judy Stearns. It seems she has heard that Judy nicknamed her the 'ignoble Noble.'"