“Why, Lil!” remarked Alice, looking at her suspiciously, “it certainly sounds as if you had a date!”
“I have!” replied the other mysteriously.
“Then I move we don’t adjourn!” said Alice, maliciously. “It’s only half-past eight—let’s stay and study scout work!”
“There’s a motion on the floor, Miss Endicott!” said Lily, haughtily. “Yours is not in order!”
“And for that matter,” put in Marjorie, “Alice has a date too, only she doesn’t know it.”
“I have? What?”
“Well, Lily and I have a little surprise for you all. We wrote home for some food, and it came; so we’ve invited all the dudes to a party in the dining-room. Mr. and Mrs. Hilton are there already, and something tells me the rest of the people suspect something.”
The scouts waited for no formal adjournment now, but one and all jumped up, embracing Marjorie and Lily as they passed in their rush for the dining-room. The news had travelled already, and the guests were there before their hostesses.
Mrs. Hilton had arranged the refreshments on the table while the scouts were at their meeting. The prospect of eating those wonderful apples and oranges that formed such an attractive center-piece of tasting the daintiest bon-bons and chocolates, and having plenty of more substantial things like crackers and cheese and olives, seemed thrilling to these people to whom fresh fruit and candies were such rarities.
The young people grouped themselves about the table and began to pass the food. It seemed as if everything that could possibly be sent two-thirds of the way across the continent had been thought of and included. Figs, fruit-cake, nuts, pickles, olives, raisins, crackers of all kinds—so much that there would be no need for breakfast the following day.