"Got your costume ready for to-night, Judy?" asked Nancy one glorious sunshiny morning a few weeks later.

"I have not," came from Judith in dismayed tones; "I absolutely forgot about it. Why didn't you remind me? I haven't heard any one mention it all week."

"Well, there hasn't really been time to do anything, has there? And, anyway, we usually concoct something at the last minute. I do love dressing up, don't you?"

"I do if I don't have to make up the dress," said Judith honestly, as she finished making her bed and leaned out of the window to take deep breaths of the glorious October air. "Nancy, do come and look at the maple grove, and the oaks and the beeches against that lovely sky, and isn't the vine on Miss Meredith's house simply a gorgeous colour? I could almost eat the sunshine, it's so good. Tell me what to wear to-night. I don't know what I should have done without your help last Friday."

"Let's think it over," said Nancy, pulling on a sweater and cap and running off to play tennis with Jane; "see you at recess and we'll decide then."

But when recess came Judith confessed to not having given it a thought, she had been kept too busy for the consideration of such frivolities as a Friday party, and Nancy on her part had a doleful tale of returned lessons to be made up during the afternoon.

"Oh, why didn't I prepare that French prose?" she wailed when the crew of the "Jolly Susan" foregathered after luncheon in her room. "I begged Madame to let me make it up any other time, but of course she wouldn't."

"Oh, well, we're not going to dress alike this time," said Sally May, "so it doesn't matter. It was fun, though, wasn't it, making sailor-boy costumes out of sheets and pillowcases, and I never laughed so hard in my life as when North House came in. You really ought to have seen them"—this to Jane who had been away for the week-end—"not one of them looked more than six months old—they pasted paper over their teeth and had on the cutest little bonnets and long dresses and carried bottles—really cold-cream bottles with a glove finger on top—"

"I think the Hindus were the cleverest," said Judith.

"The question before the house is, what are we going to do to-night?" observed Josephine. "Now my idea"—

But what Josephine's idea was the rest never knew, for Rosamond put her head in at the door and called, "Long distance 'phone for you, Jo; Miss Martin says hurry"—

Judging by the speed with which Josephine vanished down the corridor she was anxious to oblige Miss Martin.

The half-past two bell rang and Nancy and Judith went off to music lessons without deciding anything about the costume for the party, and when Judith came upstairs after an early dinner she was still as undecided as ever. The corridor was as busy as the proverbial beehive, for the "borrowing-rule" had been suspended for the day, and everybody seemed to be making the most of the opportunity.

Judith was besieged with requests the moment she appeared.

"I bag your white slippers, Judy, if you don't want them," called Rosamond.

"And I want your black beads—"

"Your blue scarf, please, Judy," called Catherine from her room, "I'll be awfully careful of it."

Squeals of delight came from the various rooms where tryings-on were proceeding. "Every one seems happy but me," thought Judith dismally when the borrowers had departed.

What would a Southern costume be like, anyway? Africa? No that would be too hard and she hadn't the least idea how the Australians dressed. South America? India? Was India south? No, it couldn't be, because she had heard Audrey Green of East House describing a perfectly sweet Hindu costume which her roommate was going to wear. Southerner? How stupid of her! Why not a Virginian lady of the Colonial period? Why not? That's settled. Now as to the how; whom could she ask? But no sympathetic friend presented herself and Judith again began to feel aggrieved.

"Hurrah! hurrah!" cried Josephine excitedly rushing into the room. "Jim—my brother—arrives to-night from Alberta and he'll call here to-morrow first thing. I believe," she added in a lower, confidential tone, "I believe I must have been a bit homesick and didn't know it—there'll be letters and messages, and probably a box, too, from home. Oh, I can hardly wait till to-morrow! Jim says Mother is all right, though she misses me dreadfully—you see our nearest neighbour lives fifty miles away, and sometimes she doesn't see a white woman all winter."

"Fifty miles!" repeated Judith in amazement.

"Yes, we have to have a lot of land for the horses, and sometimes Dad is away for several days visiting the outlying parts and Mother gets pretty lonely."

"You're joking, Jo—your father couldn't spend several days travelling on his own farm."

"Not farm, Judibus," said Josephine, laughing, "it's a ranch, and it has to be big, as I said, for the horses."

"How big?" demanded Judith, still thinking of the farms she had seen in Ontario and Quebec.

"We had twenty-five thousand acres last year, but Dad has leased another ten thousand on the other side of the river. Oh, Judy, my dear, if ever you come to the West I'll show you what real fun is! Sometimes I ride all day—and such riding! I've a gem of a little mare—Patsy's her name—she's as good a chum as I ever had until I came here last year. Aren't mothers bricks?" she added with a little catch in her voice. "Mother really needs me, but she just insisted on my coming—she taught me in her spare time until I came here last year, and because spare time wasn't plentiful there are big gaps in what I know, and as I'm stupid to begin with, the lessons sometimes seem so hard that I just want to give up and run home. But of course I'm not going to," she finished, laughing at Judith's sober face; "that would be a poor way to say 'thank you' to my blessed little mother. What are you going to be to-night?"

"A Colonial lady from Virginia," answered Judith superbly.

"Good—isn't that funny? I'm going to be be a Virginian Colonel. Let's be partners. Molly was to be mine, but she certainly can't go with a sprained ankle. We'd better get busy—there isn't much time left." And Josephine disappeared into her own cubicle where Judith could hear her opening and closing drawers and singing in her funny boyish voice their new nonsense song:

Sally May and Jane whirled into the "Jolly Susan" like small hurricanes in time to sing the verse over again, and then the snatches of talk she could hear told Judith that her neighbours were thoroughly enjoying the fascinating business of dressing up, and had evidently forgotten all about her.

Perhaps it was a little reaction after several weeks of new and exciting experiences; perhaps Josephine's reference to mothers being "bricks"; whatever it was Judith felt lonely and homesick. She didn't know how to make her costume; she didn't think of Sally May, and she hated to confess to Josephine—to whom, it must be confessed, she had always felt a little superior—that she hadn't a ghost of a notion how to make, out of nothing at all, the dress of a Virginian lady of fashion.

But although Josephine had convulsed the class and enraged Madame Phillippe by translating hors de combat as "war-horse," and although her ideas as to angles and triangles were so hazy as to be of no service to her in a geometry class, she was not at all stupid where her fellow humans were concerned, and she had seen the quickly restrained quiver on Judith's lips when mothers were mentioned.

"I guess she's homesick and doesn't know it," said Josephine to herself. "I'd better buck her up a bit and give her a good time." But because she had a generous admiration of Judith's cleverness she never thought of offering her any suggestions as to how to put her costume together.

A little later she appeared in Judith's doorway in black tights, blue silk stockings, buckled shoes (cardboard buckles covered with silver paper), a white shirt blouse buttoned high, and a long black ribbon in her hand.

"Please wind it round my neck, Judy, several times as high up as you can. Why, where is your dress?" she asked in surprise.

Poor, proud Judith, how she hated to confess that she simply could not think of anything. But the despised Josephine rose to the occasion: she took charge with an assurance which immediately dispelled Judith's gloom.

"Colonial lady—um—you will look awfully nice with your hair powdered—let me see—your chintz curtains will do for panniers—put on your frilliest blouse and a white skirt, pull down your curtains, and I'll drape you in a minute or two."

Josephine was as good as her word. Blouse and skirt by means of an overdrape of window curtain were made into the dress of a lady of quality; Judith's pretty hair was piled high and liberally powdered with talcum, and Josephine even produced a tiny bit of rouge and a black patch, and insisted that to make the picture complete Judith must have the buckled shoes, and as there wasn't time to make more buckles she'd wear her old pumps.

Josephine was having such a good time admiring the result of her handiwork that Judith accepted the shoes with a good grace, and off they went to join the throng in the Big Hall. So successful had Josephine been that Judith had quite a little triumph as she entered the hall on her colonel's arm, for she had discarded the spectacles she wore during school hours, and the powder and rouge had discovered a hitherto unnoticed pair of beautiful arching eyebrows, and altogether her appearance was so distinguished that numbers of girls turned to ask, "Who's that pretty Virginian with Jo?"

It was a thrilling evening. Indeed, it is to be doubted whether bona-fide balls of later years would ever bring such thrills and such intoxicating happiness to the Pierrots and Pierrettes, gypsies and Arabs, Spanish dancers and flower girls, Elizabethan ladies and cavaliers, Red Cross nurses and college dons, Indian chiefs and squaws, cowboys and "habitant" girls, who were so thoroughly enjoying themselves.

Judith laughed and danced away her blues, and to all the compliments paid her was glad to be able to say with honest admiration, "Oh, I couldn't do it—Josephine did—isn't she just wonderful?"

And when, after "the loveliest party ever," Judith tucked up in bed and her thoughts ran to the absent mother, instead of tears she smiled happily and whispered, "What a lot of nice people there are in the world, mummy, dear—I've got an awful lot to learn—but I'm going to try hard to be unselfish and kind like Josephine and Nancy."