After dinner the girls flocked to their rooms for a last peep into mirrors and a last adjusting of ribbon or ruffle.

The members of The Adventure Club were all in Dicky Taylor’s room, when Cora and Dora Crowell darted up from the lower corridor and bouncing into “The Sign of the Tea Kettle,” they closed the door and looked around beamingly.

“We’ve found out about it,” Cora began.

“And we thought we’d be the first to spring it. We know you are just dying of curiosity,” Dora seconded.

“They’ve all come and my, don’t they look handsome, though? Dean Craig just ushered them into the library.”

“But what we don’t know is what’s in the boxes that they gave to Delia. She took them right into Mrs. Martin’s office.”

“Girls, you make me dizzy. Begin at the beginning. What have you found out?” Dicky inquired.

“The way the belle of the party is to be chosen. Instead of voting for the most popular girl as we did last year, we are to vote for a boy to lead the grand march and he is to choose the belle.” Dora was much excited. She was far more interested in having been the first to hear the new plan than she was in the plan itself.

“That’s a spiffy idea!” It was of course Betsy who had spoken.

“Babs and I’ll vote for Benjy Wilson. I say, girls, I wish you’d all vote for Benjy, then the belle is sure to be chosen from our crowd.”

“Out with her,” Dicky cried teasingly. “Betsy’s trying to influence the vote.”

“I’m crazy to know what is in the boxes,” Dora chattered on. “One was large and round and there were six smaller ones.”

“I’ll bet its candy. I hope I’ll draw the big one.”

“Bets, there’s nothing piggy about you, is there?”

“Hark, footsteps approach.” Dora peeped out of the partly open door. “It’s Miss King! Sh! Don’t let on I told.”

The instructress of manners and gymnastics appeared, and for once she was actually smiling. After all, even teachers, at times, were human.

“Young ladies, IF you please, form a line in the upper corridor as quickly and quietly as you can that you may not be heard by the guests who have assembled in the library.”

The excited girls took their places so softly that not a rustle could have been heard. Their cheeks were flushed, their eyes sparkled and there was not a heart under the pretty white ruffles that was beating normally.

Mrs. Martin in a gray silk gown stood in the lower corridor and the girls courtesied as they passed her. She smiled and nodded in return and in her heart was a warm glow of pride. Mrs. Martin loved her girls, even the most mischievous of them.

The lads in their dress uniforms were standing about the big library which had been cleared of furniture and which had crash on the floor. Miss Torrence and Dean Craig received and introduced, but at first there was a stiffness and shyness evident that these two were at a loss how to overcome. “Suppose we ask our Glee Club to sing,” Dean Craig suggested. This was done. Donald Dearing, with a truly beautiful tenor voice, sang the solo parts and a group of lads joined in the chorus.

Then Sally MacLean was asked to play on her harp. She had consented to take part in the program if her harp might be concealed by palms, but there were a few in the big room who stood in such a position that the palms could not hide from them the truly beautiful girl who sat at the golden harp. These were the lads who had just been singing. Donald Dearing, with his arms crossed, watched the all-unconscious girl as she played, and never before had Sally played with such sympathetic feeling. Something in the tenor voice had stirred a responsive chord in her music loving soul and had inspired her.

When the first waltz was played by two of the boys from Drexel on the piano and violin, Sally tried to slip away unobserved, but found Donald waiting for her near the palms. “May I have this dance with you, Miss MacLean?” he asked. Then, as they joined the others, he said softly, “My sister, who left us, was learning to play the harp. You like music, don’t you?”

“Yes,” the girl replied. “I love it. Next year mother is to take me to Paris that I may study there?”

“Good,” the lad replied, brightly. “Then, perhaps, if I may I shall be able to call on your mother and you, for my Dad is still stationed over there and I am to spend my vacations with him. He wants me to get my training at Drexel, because he did.”

Virginia glanced across the room when the dance was over and the young people were seated. In her heart there was a glow of pride for she could not but know her friendship had helped Sally to become the sweetly, sensible girl that she now was, treating her boy comrade in as frank and friendly a manner as she would a girl companion.

Somehow it seemed fitting that Donald Dearing should have the most votes and everyone knew that Sally would be chosen by him as “belle.”

Standing at his side, that flushed and happy girl was asked to choose three lassies to follow her in the march while Donald chose their partners.

Then Dora’s curiosity was satisfied concerning the content of the boxes.

A large bouquet of orchids and violets was given to Sally and smaller ones to the lucky girls who were chosen as her attendants.

How great was the change in Sally was made evident that night when the guests were gone. “Shall you press the orchids and keep them to remember Donald Dearing?” Betsy inquired as they were preparing for bed.

“No, indeed. I am going to give them to poor Miss Buell in the morning. She’s been sick for two days and she hasn’t anything in her room to make it cheerful,” was Sally’s unexpected reply.

Somehow Betsy couldn’t tease, but she confided to Dicky Taylor that she felt in her bones that some day Sally would become Mrs. Donald Dearing.