The dresses were all made and ready to be donned. One by one the girls had descended to the laundry and under the skillful supervision of Delia, the marvels of ruffly whiteness had been pressed. They were then laid on the beds in the room of each seamstress and all of the particular friends were invited in to admire. Notwithstanding the fact that with very little difference, the dresses closely resembled each other, individual taste had been displayed in sashes and hair ribbons. Betsy’s cherry-red sash with long fringed ends was indeed “adorable,” as the girls all said, and Babs was, of course, to wear blue, the color of her eyes. Dicky always wore yellow, when a choice of color was permitted. Virg had never had a sash, and, as she was not going to the city to make purchases before returning home, she had decided to be content with a muslin belt.

Betsy, however, had been sent for by her Dad, who was to be in Boston over the week-end. When she returned she called a meeting of the Study Club and presented Virginia a long box, and when that puzzled maiden opened it, there lay the softest, silkiest sash and butterfly bow for her hair. It was the color of lilacs and a delicate fragrance drifted up from its folds when the delighted girl lifted the sash and placed it about her waist.

“You like that color, don’t you, Virg?” Megsy asked. “I was sure that I had heard you say that you did.”

“Yes, indeed. I think it is the sweetest! I had a little lilac bush out on the desert. Mother had planted it and after she left I nursed it and watered it, but once when I was away Uncle Tex forgot, and it dried up and died. It had very few flowers, but I loved their color and fragrance.” Then as a card fluttered out, Virginia read: “To our beloved president from the members of the Saturday Evening Study Club.”

“Girls,” Virg exclaimed, “I don’t know what to say to thank you.”’

“That’s the way we feel about all the things you have done for us.” It was Sally who spoke.

“Why, I haven’t done anything for any of you,” Virginia declared, adding, with an almost tremulous smile, “except love you.”

“That’s it,” Margaret slipped an arm about her adopted sister. “You know ‘love sacrificeth itself.’”

“Girls, please don’t put me on a pedestal. You have helped me just as much as I hope that I have helped you.”

“If only we have all passed our exams fairly creditably,” Dicky Taylor began when Betsy interrupted, her eyes shining: “Girls, hark! The bus is coming! Eleanor Pettes will be on it. She mustn’t get as far as the front door and not have us there to greet her.”

Down the wide stairway the merry maids trooped, chattering gaily, for, as this was the last day of school, all silence rules had been banished. The bell was ringing, and Delia had appeared, but Babs beckoned her to wait and let them open the door.

“Let’s all pounce out on her and shout ‘welcome belovedest,’” Betsy suggested.

“All right. One—two—three—” The door was flung open, Betsy and Babs were about to throw their arms about the girl who was expected to be on the porch, but they stopped, and their outstretched arms dropped to their sides, for the visitors were lads from Drexel Academy. Benjy Wilson, his two best friends Jack Dennison and Dick Beardsley, while the fourth was Donald Dearing. They were in their dress uniforms and looked very fine indeed. The amazed faces of the girls puzzled the lads until the impulsive Betsy exclaimed, “Oh, we almost hugged you! We were expecting Eleanor Pettes. We were sure we heard the school bus.”

“So you did! We came up from the station on it. There was a girl on the bus, but she saw some of her friends in the orchard and so she joined them.” Then Benjy hurried on to explain, “Of course we know that it’s much too early for the party guests to arrive, but if we may, we would like to speak with Mrs. Martin. Then we are going back to town, and return at the proper time.”

The principal received the lads in her office and the girls raced out to the orchard, where they found the former editress of the Manuscript Magazine, surrounded by seniors. She turned with outstretched hands to greet the younger girls, and Betsy bubblingly related the narrow escape the boys had had from being pounced upon.

“I can’t imagine why they came so early. I’m just ever so curious to know why they wanted to see Mrs. Martin,” Babs said when Sally whispered, “See, there they go now. How straight and nice they look in their dress uniforms.”

Virginia noticed with pleasure that Sally had said this in the same way that any of them would have done. She no longer simpered, and, in fact, the girls had forgotten that they had ever called her “Sentimental Sally.”

“We’re ever so excited,” Margaret confided to Eleanor Pettes as they all turned to go in to the school. “In less than half an hour we are to gather in the gym for assembly. Miss Torrence wanted to wait until you arrived, and then the last Manuscript Magazine of the year is to be read aloud.”

Babs skipped up to say, “Betsy insists that her name is to be in it, but we are sure that she is joking. Composition isn’t her best subject.”

But a surprise awaited them.

There was a flutter of excitement evident among the 45 girls who were gathered in assembly just as the clock told the hour of three. Dean Craig, who had accompanied the boys to Vine Haven, was the only outsider who had been invited to the reading. He sat with Mrs. Martin and the other teachers on the raised platform at one end of the long hall.

Miss Torrence rose.

“How young she looks today,” Bess whispered to Megsy. “Sometimes she seems real old and wise, but in that flowered muslin she looks like a senior instead of a——”

“Sh! Miss Torrence is speaking.”

“Young ladies,” the English teacher was saying, and she smiled on them all, “I want to thank you for your splendid co-operation which has made it possible for us to produce a magazine of unusual excellence. Too, I am sure that you will wish to express your gratitude to Dean Craig, who has had his boys print fifty copies that you may each have one to keep as a memento of this school year which is now closing. In it, on page fifteen, you will find a list of all your names and home addresses. This will enable you to correspond with each other, even though you may not return to this school another year.” Miss Torrence paused to take from a table, near, a copy of the magazine. Several of the girls took that opportunity to lean over and whisper, “Betsy, now we know why your name is in.”

For reply, that maid wrinkled her pert little nose, then turned toward the front, for Miss Torrence was again speaking.

“We have with us our former editress, Eleanor Pettes, and, at your request, she will read the opening poem which she wrote in memory of her school days here.”

The English teacher seated herself and Eleanor went to the platform. Her rather long poem told of pleasant events and friendships formed in the three years she had spent at Vine Haven, and the girls were all glad that they were going to have a copy of the magazine for their very own.

Eleanor Burgess then read her short story, and one after another of the stories and poems followed, the young authors going to the platform as their turns came.

At last Mrs. Martin rose and said smilingly, “That is all, young ladies, you may now go to your rooms, for I am sure that you will want to rest before dressing for the evening party.”

Babs leaned forward to whisper: “There, Miss Betsy, I told you that your name wouldn’t be in, that is, not more than any of the others.” But Miss Torrence was motioning the girls to remain seated.

“Pardon me, Mrs. Martin,” she said, turning toward the principal, “may I detain the young ladies one more moment? I wish to read one item, which, though neither a poem nor story, is, I am sure, of unusual interest. Five names are to be added to the Honor Roll. These are Betsy Clossen, Sally MacLean, Dicky Taylor, Anne Petersen and Eleanor Burgess.”

Such a hand clapping as followed. Then, at a motion for dismissal, the girls thronged around Betsy, Sally and Dicky, congratulating and teasing. Invariably, in response to the astonished inquiries, “How in the world did you manage to do it?” all three replied. “Don’t ask us! Ask Virginia!”

“All right. Here is the answer,” that maiden smilingly replied. “You chose a definite goal and then kept working straight toward it just as Mrs. Martin has always told us is the only way to attain success.”

“Hurrah for us!” The irrepressible Betsy sprang up on a ladder that led to a cross-bar. There, holding by one hand, and waving her cherry-red hair ribbon in the other, she recited gaily:

“Three cheers for Virginia Davis,
Who has dragged us along to success.
The very best president there ever was.
Do we love her? Well, I’ll say YES!”

Virginia was pleased when her friends all joined in the cheering, and how she wished her brother Malcolm and Uncle Tex could hear it.

“But I’ll soon be able to tell them all about it,” Virginia thought, with a sudden warm glow in her heart. Then, as the merry throng had started to ascend the basement stairs on the way to their rooms, where they were expected to rest for an hour before dressing for the party, she confided to the girl nearest, “Margaret, just think, in one week you and I will be home on the wonderful desert. Are you glad?”

There was an unmistakable answer in the eyes that were lifted and in the loving squeeze that the older girl felt on her arm, though no word was spoken. Even Virginia did not guess how eager Margaret was to see her guardian, the earnest quiet lad, Malcolm Davis.

At the entrance to Sweet Pickle Alley, Betsy whirled to say: “Sally and I are going to be the belles of the party tonight, so don’t anybody dare to speak a loud word for the next hour, being as we are going to take our beauty nap.”

“You’ll need more than an hour for that——” Bess began teasingly, then she darted for her room, followed by Margaret.

A very unusual silence did settle down on the upper corridor, but it was soon broken by the stealthy opening of a door.

It was Margaret who on tip-toe crossed the narrow hall which the girls called Apple Blossom Lane. Ever so lightly she tapped on the door opposite. If Virginia were really asleep, she could not have heard, but she was awake, sitting in the easy chair close to the open window through which a breeze from the sea was wafting.

“Come in, dear,” her smile was welcoming. “I thought you planned taking a nap.”

Virginia moved over, for that deep comfortable chair was wide enough for two slender girls. “I knew that Eleanor had gone home,” Margaret began, “directly after the reading, and, since you were alone I thought—well, I guess I felt a little home sick. Babs is a dear, but Virg, you and Malcolm are all the real home folks that I have. I hope we’ll never be separated again, not even by a narrow hall.”

Virginia slipped her arm about her brother’s ward and the golden head and the brown rested close together. For a time they were silent, just content to be together. After a time Megsy spoke. “We’re not coming back next year, are we?”

“No, dear. I am not. I feel that the home on the desert needs me. I want you to come, if you wish, but I shall be glad if you are content at V. M. with me.”

Impulsively Margaret turned and clung to her friend. “Oh, Virg,” she half sobbed, “I don’t know why I have doubted. You haven’t given me any reason to, but I sometimes thought perhaps you would rather have Eleanor Pettes or someone older and wiser than I am for your very dearest friend. I’ve tried to be glad but I’ve been so—so foolishly lonesome.”

“Why, little-big sister, I never dreamed that you felt left out. In the very beginning, I would have chosen you for my roommate, don’t you know that dear? But who else would have wanted to room with Winona? No one understands her as I do, and then, there was Babs. She began at once to prattle about your rooming together as you had done the year before.”

“Oh, I know I have been silly, and I’m awfully sorry, Virg. It wasn’t that I thought you ought to like me best. I don’t think I’m anywhere near nice enough for that, and you’re heaps wiser, but just the same I wanted to be loved best. It’s horribly selfish, isn’t it?”

Virginia held her companion in a closer clasp. She was thinking of the mother and father love that they both of them had lost.

“No, dear, it is not selfish for us to want our sisters and our brothers to love us best and we do, deeply, truly, sincerely.” She kissed Margaret and rose, for there had been a sudden stir in the corridors. The hour of rest was over and an excited hum of voices told that the girls were preparing to dress for the party which was one of the great events of the school year.

A merry pounding on the closed door announced arrivals and before Virg could open it, a group of laughing girls burst in unceremoniously. They were dragging Sally whose wealth of long golden hair had been unbraided and hung to her knees. She was wearing an exquisite pale blue silk kimona embroidered with delicate pink flowers which her doting mother had sent her as a gift from Paris. There were slippers to match.

“Virg,” Betsy Clossen cried, “isn’t our Sally a picture? If she could appear in that tonight, wouldn’t she be the belle of the ball all right?”

“If I had hair like yours Sal, I’d think life was worth living.” Dicky Taylor perched on the arm of a chair and looked admiringly at the maid whose cheeks were flushed and whose eyes sparkled. Breaking away from her truly admiring tormentors, Sally darted for the door. “I may surprise you and be the belle of the ball for all your teasing. Just wait and see.”

“Was that a threat?” Betsy began, then chancing to glance at the clock, she sprang up from the window seat, grabbed Dicky and Babs and pushed them toward the door. “Only three-quarters of an hour to dress and if we intend to outshine Sally, we’ll have to do a powerful lot of prinking.”

Margaret and Virginia left alone, smiled at each other. “What a merry trio Babs, Betsy and Dicky are,” Virg said as she let down her own sunny hair and began to brush it.

“Dear,” Margaret said, “you’ve done a good many things this year worth the doing, but among the most lasting in its influence for good, I do believe is the change that you have wrought in Sally. She used to be so self-conscious and simpering; probably because her mother was always asking people if they didn’t think she was a beautiful child, but now, when we really were admiring that wonderful hair of hers, she would have like to pummel us.”

“She’s a dear girl,” Virginia agreed, “and I only hope her unwise mother will not be able to undo the good we have done. But do hurry, Megsy, if you are to compete for the honor of being belle of the ball.”

“I plead not guilty. I’m going to vote for you, of course.” Then she skipped to her room across the hall, but scarcely had she gone, when Dicky Taylor appeared, dressed in the ruffly white gown but carrying a long pale green hair ribbon, “Oh, I say, Virg,” she pleaded, “won’t you have pity on a ‘pusson’ whose fingers are all thumbs? I’ve tried twenty times to tie a beautiful butterfly bow for my crowning ornament but I simply can’t do it.”

“Of course I will.” Virginia’s skillful fingers soon fashioned a graceful bow which she pinned atop of the short dark locks. With profuse thanks, Dicky darted away but almost at once Babs and Betsy appeared. “Oh, I say, Virg, that’s being partial. Betsy’ll get all the votes just because of that adorable bow. Show us how to make ours.”

“Better still, I’ll make them!” When the grateful girls were gone, Megsy appeared. “Why, Virg, it’s ten minutes to dinner time and you aren’t dressed. I was going to ask you to tie my sash, but instead I’m going to help you.”

Virginia’s toilet was completed just as the supper bell rang. “There’s to be a new way to choose the belle tonight. I wonder what it is to be,” Betsy whispered as the excited girls trooped down to the dining room.