"Please don't be an old bear," coaxed Betty, and Betty knew how to coax to perfection. "Mollie has some perfectly wonderful news to tell us and all our girls and boys are going to be there to hear it. You wouldn't want me to be terribly disappointed—now you know you wouldn't," and she looked at him appealingly.
Mollie opened the door to them herself, radiantly eager to tell her news.
"Oh, hurry, you two!" she cried. "I thought you would never get here. We have been waiting for—oh, ever so long."
"Well, if we are the last, everybody must have turned over a new leaf just for to-night," remarked Betty, as she started for the library from which came a confused murmur of many voices, speaking all at once, with now and then a burst of merry laughter.
"Leave your hat here, Allen," said Mollie, and Betty threw him a merry glance over her shoulder.
"Hello, everybody," she called a moment later, as she flung aside the portières and stood framed in the doorway. "Mollie tells us we are the last and——"
"Well, so you are. We thought you and Allen had mistaken the date," said Frank. "Accidentally on purpose," he added slyly.
"Not a chance in the world, Frank," said Allen, who had come into the room in time to hear the last remark. "I might be afflicted with loss of memory; but, Betty—never!" They all laughed with enjoyment—all but Betty who threw him a reproachful glance which he refused to catch.
"Well, now we are here, let's have the news," said Roy, who was always impatient to get to the heart of things. "Come on, Mollie—out with it."
Nothing loath, Mollie settled herself with an important air and began her tale.