"I think we may congratulate ourselves," commented Gertrude Wells as she stood beside Miriam Nesbit, surveying their almost completed task. "Look at my hands! I have scratched and bruised them handling those evergreens. My dress is a sight, too," she added, pointing first to the green stains that decorated her white linen gown, then significantly to a three-cornered tear near the bottom of the skirt. "I don't care. It will be out of style by next summer, at any rate."
"I'm not much better off," declared Miriam. "You can't be a working woman and keep up a bandbox appearance, you know."
"I should say not," laughed Arline Thayer, who had come up in time to hear Miriam's last remark.
"Does any one know the time?" asked Grace, standing back a little to view the effect of the bunting she had been winding about a post. "I can't see the gym. clock from here. It is so swathed in green boughs and decorations that its poor round face is almost hidden, and I'm really too tired to go close enough to find out."
"It's five minutes past four o'clock," informed Gertrude, glancing at the tiny watch pinned to her waist.
"Good gracious!" exclaimed Arline Thayer, "I can't stay here another minute. I have a hundred things to do before to-night."
"Where's Ruth?" asked Grace. "I haven't seen either of you lately except at an aggravating distance."
Arline's baby face hardened. "I haven't seen Ruth for over two weeks," she said stiffly.
"You haven't!" exclaimed Grace, who, stooping to tie her shoe, had not noticed Arline's changed expression. As she straightened up her surprised gray eyes met Arline's defiant blue ones. Like a flash she remembered. "Then you don't know who she has invited to the reception?"
"No," responded Arline shortly. "I don't know anything about it."