“I’ve counted! And I beg pardon for rushing in here like that. But I was afraid the others had favors to ask and I wanted to get mine in first!” said Gwendolyn, after the brief pause Miss Tross-Kingdon had suggested.

“Oh! you sweet, unselfish thing!” mocked Winifred, “your favor can’t be half as fine as mine—”

“Nor mine! Oh! do please let me speak first, for fear he gets away!” begged Dorothy, eagerly.

“First come first served, Dolly, please!” coaxed Gwendolyn and the teacher nodded to her to speak.

“Mine’s for next Saturday. Mrs. Jarley’s Wax Works are to be in town and Mamma says if you’ll allow I may invite the whole school to go. She’ll have big sleighs sent out for us and will let us have supper at the hotel where she stops. May we go?”

“Wait a moment, Gwendolyn. Did you say the ‘whole school’?”

Each year Lady Jane had allowed her daughter to entertain her schoolmates in some such manner but the number had, heretofore, been limited to “Peers” only. Such a wholesale invitation as this required some explanation.

Gwendolyn’s eyes fell and her cheek flushed, while the other girls listened in wondering delight for her answer, which came after some hesitation. But came frankly at last in the girl’s own manner.

“I’m ashamed now of the silly notions I used to have. I wanted to do something which would prove that I am; so instead of picking out a few of what we called ‘our set’ I want every girl at Oak Knowe to join us. You’ll understand, of course, that there will be no expense to anybody. It’s Mamma’s farewell treat to us girls, before she goes abroad. May she and I give it?”

“Indeed, you may, Gwendolyn, if the Bishop approves. With the understanding that no lessons are neglected. The winter is about over. Spring exams are near, and ‘Honors’ or even ‘Distinction’ will not be won without hard work.”

“Thank you, Miss Muriel. May I go now and ask the Bishop, then tell the girls?”

“Certainly,” and there was an expression of greater pleasure on the lady’s face than on that of Gwendolyn’s even.

Winifred executed what she called a “war dance” as Gwen disappeared, crying:

“That’s what I call a wholesale burying of the hatchet! That ‘Honorable’ young woman is distinguishing herself. Don’t you think so, Miss Muriel?”

“I am pleased. I am very pleased. Gwendolyn has surely dropped her foolishness and I’m proud of her. It’s so much safer for anyone to be normal, without fads or fancies—”

“Oh! come now, you dear Schoolma’am! Never mind the pretty talk just this minute, ’cause I can’t wait to tell you—Father’s coming—my Father is coming and a proper good time with him! If you’ll only remember I wasn’t saucy then—A girl you’d raised to hand, like me, couldn’t really be saucy, could she? And—and please just wait a minute. Please let me talk first. Because I can’t ask everybody, but my darling Father means just as well as Lady Jane. His invite is only for a dozen—round baker’s dozen, to take a trip in his car to Montreal and visit the Ice Palace! Think of that! The beautiful Ice Palace that I’ve never seen in all my life. If you’ll say ‘yes,’ if you’ll be the picker out of ’em, besides yourself and Miss Hexam and Dawkins—Oh! dear! You three grown-ups take off three from my dozen-thirteen! But there’ll be ten left, any way, and please say yes and how many days we may be gone and—Oh! I love you, Miss Muriel, you know I do!”

The lady Principal calmly loosened Winifred’s clasping arms, and smilingly looked into the sparkling, pleading eyes before her. Who could be stern with the whimsical child she had cared for during so many years, and under whose apparently saucy manner, lay a deep love and respect? She did not enlighten the pleader on the fact that this was no new thing she had just heard; nor that there had been written communications passing between Mr. Christie and the Bishop with consent already won. But she put her answer off by saying:

“We’ll see about it, Winifred: and I’m glad there was nobody save Dorothy here to see you so misbehave! But if we go, and if the selection is left to me, I may not please you; for I should choose those whose record for good conduct is highest and whose preparation for exams is most complete.”

Winifred wrinkled her brows. Of course she, as hostess couldn’t be counted either out or in, but she knew without telling that but few of her own class-ten would be allowed to go. They were the jolliest “ten” at Oak Knowe and oftener in disgrace about lessons than free from it.

“Oh! dear! I do wish we’d dreamed this treat was coming! I’d have forced the ‘Aldriches’ to study as hard as they played—if—if I had to do it at the point of my mahl-stick. I guess it’ll be a lesson to them.”

“I trust it will, dear, but Dorothy has waited all this time. Three little maids with three little wishes, regular fairy-tale like, and two of them granted already. What’s yours, Dorothy?”

Since listening to the others’ requests, her own seemed very simple, almost foolish; but she answered promptly:

“I want to get you a boot-boy.”

Winifred laughed.

“Hey, Dolly! To switch off from a private-car-ice-palace-trip into a boot-boy’s jacket is funny enough. Who’s the candidate you’re electioneering for?”

Miss Muriel hushed Winifred’s nonsense which had gone far enough and was due, she knew, to the girl’s wild delight over her father’s promised visit.

“If you could find a good one for me, Dorothy, you would certainly be doing me a favor, not I one for you. Whom do you mean?”

“Robin Locke, Miss Tross-Kingdon. He’s so very poor.”

“Poverty isn’t always a recommendation for usefulness. Is he old enough? Is it that lad who came with Mr. Gilpin?”

“Yes, Miss Muriel. He’s just the loveliest boy I’ve seen in Canada—”

“The only one, except Jack!” interrupted Winifred.

“It was because of me and my carelessness he got hurt and broke himself. He was carrying my telegram that I ought to have sent long before and he was so starved he fell off his bicycle and always ever since I’ve wished I could help him some way and he’d have such a nice home here and he wouldn’t bring in goats, and his mother could do things to help and I thought maybe he could do the shoes and other things would be easier than what he did and could be a golf-boy for the Bishop when the time comes and it’s pretty near and—”

“There, Dorothy, take your breath, and put a comma or two into your sentences. Then we’ll talk about this project of yours. Where’s Robin now?”

“Right out on the settle this minute waiting—if he hasn’t gone away—May I—”

“Yes, honey, step-an’-fetch him!” laughed Winifred again, “he’s used to that sort of talk.”

Away flashed Dorothy and now, at a really serious rebuke from the Lady Principal, Winifred sobered her lively spirits to be an interested witness of the coming interview, as Dorothy came speeding back, literally dragging the shy Robin behind her.

But, as before, the presence of other young folks and Miss Muriel’s first question put him at his ease.

“Robin, are you willing to work rather hard, in a good home, for your mother and to provide one for her, too?”

“Why, of course, Ma’am. That’s what I was a-doin’ when I fell off. Goody! Wouldn’t I? Did you ever see my mother, lady?”

“Yes, Robin, at our Hallowe’en Party,” answered Miss Tross-Kingdon, smiling into the beautiful, animated face of this loyal son.

“You’d like her, Ma’am, you couldn’t help it. She’s ‘the sweetest thing in the garden,’ Father used to say, and he knew. She feels bad now, thinking we’ve been so long at the farmer’s ’cause she don’t see how ’t we ever can pay them. And the doctor, too. Oh! Ma’am, did you hear tell of such a place? Do you think I could get it?”

“Yes, lad, I did hear of just such, for Dorothy told me. It’s right here at Oak Knowe. The work is to pick up row after row of girls’ shoes, standing over night outside their bedroom doors and to blacken them, or whiten them, as the case might be, and to have them punctually back in place, in time for their owners to put on. Cleaning boots isn’t such a difficult task as it is a tedious one. The maids complain that it’s more tiresome than scrubbing, and a boy I knew grew very careless about his work. If I asked you and your mother to come here to live, would you get tired? Or would she dislike to help care for the linen mending? Of course, you would be paid a fair wage as well as she. What do you think?”

What Robin thought was evident: for away he ran to Dorothy’s side and catching her hand kissed it over and over.

“Oh! you dear, good girl! It was you who helped the doctor set my bones, it was you who let me slide on your new toboggan, and it’s you who’ve ‘spoke for me’ to this lady. Oh! I do thank you. And now I’m not afraid to go back and see Mr. Gilpin. He was so vexed with me because he thought—May I go now, Ma’am? and when do you want us, Mother and me?”

“To-morrow morning, at daybreak. Will you be here?”

“Will I not? Oh! good-by. I must go quick! and tell my Mother that she needn’t worry any more. Oh! how glad I am!”

With a bow toward Miss Tross-Kingdon and a gay wave of his hand toward the girls, he vanished from the room, fairly running down the corridor and whistling as he went. The rules of Oak Knowe had yet all to be learned but it certainly was a cheerful “noise in halls” to which they listened now.

“And that’s another ‘link’ in life, such as Uncle Seth was always watching for. If I hadn’t delayed that telegram and he hadn’t fallen down and—everything else that happened—Robin would never have had such a lovely chance,” said Dorothy proudly.

“That’s a dangerous doctrine, Dorothy. It’s fine to see the ‘links’ you speak of, but not at all fine to do evil that good may come. I’d rather have you believe that this same good might have come to the lad without your own first mistake. But it’s time for studying Sunday lessons and you must go.”

“Catch me studying ‘links’ for things, Dolly, if it gets a body lectured. Dear Lady Principal does so love to cap her kindnesses with ‘a few remarks.’ There’s a soft side and a hard side to that woman, and a middle sort of schoolma’amy side between. She can’t help it, poor thing, and mostly her soft side was in front just now.

“Think of it! Wax Works and Ice Palaces all in one term! I do just hope Mrs. Jarley’ll have a lot of real blood-curdling ‘figgers’ to look at and not all miminy-piminy ones. Well, good night, honey, I’m off to be as good as gold.”

Every pupil at Oak Knowe, in the week that followed, tried to be “as good as gold,” for a pleasure such as Lady Jane proposed to give the school was as welcome to the highest Form as to the lowest Minims, and the result was that none was left out of the party—not one.

It was all perfectly arranged, even the weather conspiring to further the good time, with a beautifully clear day and the air turned mild, with a promise of the coming spring. The snow was beginning to waste, yet the sleighing held fine and the city stables had been ransacked to obtain the most gorgeous outfits with the safest drivers.

Thirty handsome sleighs with their floating plumes and luxurious robes, drawn by thirty spans of beautiful horses was the alluring procession which entered Oak Knowe grounds on the eventful Saturday; and three hundred happy girls, each in her best attire piled into them. Yes, and one small boy! For who could bear to leave behind that one last child of the great family? And a boy who in but a week’s time had learned to clean shoes so well and promptly?

So clad in his new suit, of the school’s uniform, “Such as all we men folks wear”—as he had proudly explained to his mother when he first appeared in this before her—and with a warm top-coat and cap to match, the happy youngster rode in the leading sleigh in which sat Lady Jane herself.

Of how those happy young folks took possession of the exhibition hall, that had been reserved for them; and smiled or shuddered over the lifelike images of famous men and women; and finally tore themselves away from the glib tongue of the exhibitor and his fascinating show—all this any schoolgirl reader can picture for herself.

Then of the dinner at the great hotel, in a beautiful room also reserved that they might indulge their appetites as hunger craved without fear or observation of other guests: the slow drive about the city, and the swift drive home—with not one whit of the gayety dimmed by any untoward accident.

“Oh! it’s been a perfect success! Nothing has happened that should not, and I believe that I’ve been the happiest girl of all! But such a crowd of them. Better count your flock, Miss Tross-Kingdon, maybe, and see if any are missing;” said Lady Jane as she stepped down at the Oak Knowe door.

“I don’t see how there could be, under your care, my Lady, but I’ll call a mental roll.”

So she did. But the roll was not perfect. Two were missing. Why?