A SUPPER PARTY
"Oh, goody!" Judith heard Nancy saying, "isn't it splendid that it came on Friday! We never have anything but buns and milk after a Friday night lecture. Your mother is an angel, Sally May; she must have guessed that this was going to be a Friday without a party."
"That you, Judy?" came in Sally May's pretty voice; "come on in." And Judith was soon seated on Sally May's couch.
The crew of the "Jolly Susan" were invited, she learned, to partake of an elegant cold collation consisting of roast chicken, meringues, cakes, candies, etc., etc., which Sally May's mother was thoughtfully sending them from a caterer in town.
"Have you asked Miss Marlowe if we may have the small sitting-room?" asked Nancy after Judith had been informed of the feast awaiting her.
"Asked—Miss Marlowe?" gasped Sally May; "well, of all the queer schools! Ask a teacher if we may have a midnight supper? Well, I reckon not!"
"Why, that's the way we do," returned Nancy; "the lecture will be over early and then we'll go up to the sitting-room and have our feed."
"Oh, that," said Sally May, "is ridiculous and no fun at all. Why, at Knowlton Manor we always waited until twelve o'clock, at least, and had our feasts in the loveliest places. Once we had supper in the cellar, and the engineer caught us and we had a terrible time bribing him; and last June, at Miss Gray's school, five of us were caught in the teachers' own sitting-room at three a.m."
Her hearers looked horrified enough to satisfy even Sally May, who loved to tell a story, and she related one epic after another, until the York audience were convinced that life would not be worth living unless they too could recount similar tales when they went home for the Christmas vacation.
Miss Marlowe and her rules were forgotten, and they laid their plans for a midnight supper.