"What is it?" chorused half a dozen voices. "Well, I never! If it isn't Grace and Patience!"
There was a concerted rush toward the two girls. "What in the name of common sense is this illustrious combination?" asked Emma. "Why didn't you choose something a little harder."
"We are easy enough to guess," returned Patience loftily. "That is, if you are familiar with standard fiction."
"I'm not. I never was," declared Emma. "Tell us instanter!"
"Allow me to introduce you to the 'Cloister.'" Patience bowed low. "And the 'Hearth.'" Grace saluted the company with a loud jingling of her andirons.
"Oh," groaned Elfreda. "No wonder my powers of deduction failed. Who could guess that Grace was representing a hearth? She looks more like a section of a garden wall or the stone foundation for a new house, or——"
"If my costume looks as stony as that, then I do look like a hearth, and either your eyesight or your imagination is defective," declared Grace in triumph.
"Certainly, you resemble a hearth," agreed Emma Dean. "Now tell me how you like my costume. It took me hours to reduce my wearing apparel to its present picturesque state. All you girls are screaming successes. But who is 'Peter Rabbit'?"
"I don't know, but I'm going to find out," declared Elfreda. "He, or rather she, carried a package of little cards with a cunning rabbit's head and the name 'Peter Rabbit' on them. I have one here."
"So have I," came from every member of the group.