The ribbons were criticised, approved, or condemned, according to the various tastes of the girls. Those who were familiar with the difficulties attending country shopping were disposed to be satisfied, and thought the committee had done as well as they could have done themselves, which is as high praise as can be expected from any body.

But the candy purchases gave unmixed delight to those who had sent for it, and ecstatic little screams of glee hailed the opening of the packages. The second class—that is, the little girls—had gone up to Miss Blake’s room for the regular twilight twenty minutes of poetry that they had three times a week, and the first-room girls all adjourned to the spare room to embellish the dolls with the newly acquired ribbons. It was then that the candy was produced and generously distributed by its owners.

“Now tell us all about the excursion,” said Katie, with her mouth full of caramels and her hands busy with a blue ribbon. “Of course Miss Smith was perishing to know what you wanted of so many shades of ribbon, wasn’t she?”

“Yes,” said Bell; “but she’s a dear old soul, and when we told her about the dolls she offered to make a dozen straw hats for them, and she’s going to send them up to-morrow.”

“Hurrah for Miss Smith!” exclaimed Lily, “and what a splendid idea! We never thought of head-covering. Let’s go to work and make little cloth tennis caps and Greek caps for a lot of the bare-headed young persons. They’re easy to make, and I know how to cut them out.”

That suggestion was well received, and the work was immediately begun; but Lily was not too much absorbed in cutting out the caps to ask for more particulars from Bell and Fannie.

“Yes; whom did you see?” said Katie, remembering her own disappointment at not being elected one of the shoppers.

“We saw Miss Smith,” said Fannie, teasingly.

“Well, I should say you did, by the pile of ribbons you bought. It was real good in her to give so much for the money; but who else did you see?” “A young and blooming stranger,” said Fannie.

“Gracious! Was she a friend of Miss Smith?”

“Not she, but he.”

“For pity’s sake, a man, a young man? Why, what do you expect Mrs. Abbott to say to you hapless girls if you have been meeting a young man?”

“We couldn’t help meeting him,” said Fannie.

“But we didn’t meet him at all, Fannie,” said Bell; “he overtook us and spoke before he got up to us; that was after we passed him, you know.”

“You seem slightly incoherent,” said Edna. “He passed you and you passed him. And where was Miss Blake all this time? She is not much of a ‘dragon’ if she lets strange young men speak to the girls in the street. My, wouldn’t madame have made short work of that kind of a teacher.”

“Miss Blake is all right,” said Bell, stolidly, unwilling to explain the situation.

Lily laid down her scissors and looked the committee over sharply. “Girls,” she said, “you are keeping back something interesting. Now, make a clean breast of it and tell us the whole story right away. Confess now, unless you want to be handed over for torture.”

Then Fannie, acting as spokesman, told their adventure fully. Their hearers were much amazed that the two steadiest girls in the school should have been so daring as to go deliberately to the station at the risk of seriously displeasing Mrs. Abbott.

“It reminds me,” said Lily, pensively, “of a solemn old horse my grandfather had who was steady as a turtle all through his colthood and slow middle age, but when he was at the over-ripe age of twenty-two he ran away for the first time and spilt my grandmother out of the buggy in her best bonnet. Four steady, obedient years you two studious scholars have led sober lives beneath this scholastic roof, and now you disgrace yourselves and break your record. Ah, it is a weepful fact that you can’t ’most always tell what serious nags and solemn girls can do in the way of giddiness!”

“Tell us something about the fellow,” said Edna; “what did he look like? Dark, melting eyes, rich voice, smooth olive skin, etc., eh?”

“Olive skin, to be sure, and eyes that looked as if they had been boiled till they were half melted,” answered Fannie. “He was horrid.” “I didn’t think he was so bad-looking,” said Bell; “his features were not out of the way; the worst thing about him was his looking so vulgar and flashy. It seems queer that such a person should be a particular friend of Mrs. Abbott’s.”

“O, people have queer friends, sometimes,” said Edna, “but I don’t believe she’ll take his sister.”

“I hope we shall know when he comes to see Mrs. Abbott, so we can try to get a look at him,” said Katie. “Should you know him again, girls?”

“I should say so; we are not likely to forget that big plaid suit or that high hooked nose.”

“O, he had a high hooked nose, had he?” said Edna. “Perhaps your friend is some relation to that inquisitive peddler who wanted to find out if any one in the school wore mourning. He had that kind of a nose.”

Marion had not joined in the conversation, but while she looped some white baby-ribbon into a small rosette she listened attentively to the girls’ account of their adventure. Now she asked timidly if it would not be better to tell Mrs. Abbott about the man.

“And why should we walk ourselves right straight into hot water?” said Fannie, petulantly. “I know we did wrong in going to the station, but it was no crime. We never have been forbidden.”

“I am the most worried for fear the young man will mention seeing us there when he comes to see her,” said Bell.

“Don’t you worry,” said Lily; “that dark-eyed youth will never come. He’s a gay deceiver. Imagine a fellow like that being a friend of Mrs. Abbott’s.”

“Why in the world should he say so, then?”

“Perhaps he saw from your lamb-like countenance that you were innocent enough to answer his questions. He may have some reason for finding out something about this establishment. As Edna said about her peddler, perhaps he’s an enterprising burglar on the lookout for points.”

“Well, anyway, we didn’t tell him any thing.”

“But you said you told him Elfie was here,” said Marion, looking troubled, “and I do really think it would be best to tell Mrs. Abbott.”

“Ridiculous!” sneered Edna; “I don’t think so.”

“It wasn’t good taste at all in the girls to mention any name to a strange creature like that,” said Lily; “but I don’t suppose he will ever think of it again. What I think was the worst thing was going off to the station, and if it were I, I should tell Mrs. Abbott what I did; I always feel better after I have ‘confessed,’ though I own it’s pretty hard work.”

But Bell and Fannie either lacked moral courage or were not in the mood to take her very excellent advice.