On the twelfth of February, Mrs. Baird announced after school, that there would be a masquerade party on Valentine’s Day.

“Last year, the old girls will remember, that we had a book party, and it was great fun,” she said, “but this year, I have thought of something entirely new. I want you all to dress as famous women in history. Choose the particular heroine you admire most, find a picture of her in the library, and try to copy it. The attic will be open this afternoon and you may take what you want from the costume trunks. The Seniors have the affair in charge and they are offering a prize for the best representation.” The girls clapped their appreciation of this novel idea and Mrs. Baird continued:

“Don’t all come as Queen Elizabeths, and Betsy Rosses, find some one not so well known, and whom you really admire. There will be lots of visitors on the platform and I want you all to look your best.”

“Jemima,” Betty gasped, when they had been dismissed and she, Lois and Polly were in the latter’s room. “Who under the sun can we go as?”

“It is hard, isn’t it?” Lois said, “but you had a splendid costume last year; didn’t you go as the Last of the Mohicans?”

“Yes, I have my Indian suit.”

“Why don’t you go as Pocahontas?” Polly suggested. “Your hair isn’t black, but it would look great in two heavy braids.”

“That’s just what I’ll do. I’ll go grab that suit before any of the others get it.” And Betty dashed for the attic.

Lois jumped as the door slammed. “Isn’t that just like Bet, she ought to go as a little whirlwind. Poll, what can we go as?”

“I don’t know, let’s ask Miss Porter.”

“Do you suppose we can find her?”

“Yes, she’s probably in her room.”

They walked down Faculty Corridor, and tapped gently at the last door on the left.

“Come in,” called a voice, not Miss Porter’s.

They entered, to find Miss King, the trained nurse, sitting on the window box, a bunch of artificial flowers in one hand, and a rather battered velvet hat in the other.

“Is Miss Porter here?” Lois asked.

“Yes, just a minute,” Miss Porter was struggling in the depths of her closet. “I’ll be with you in a second; sit down.”

“What is it, costumes?” Miss King asked, when they were seated on the couch.

“Yes, we thought Miss Porter would help us decide what to wear,” Polly explained.

“I’m here about costumes, too, but it’s hardly the same. I’m begging. I found that poor little wretch Martha, who works in the laundry, out yesterday without a hat. I told her she’d catch her death of cold and to go put one on right away. She said she couldn’t because she didn’t have any.”

“Oh, the poor kid,” Polly’s sympathy was genuine.

“I’ve a tam I could give her to wear every day,” she said shyly, “if you think—”

“Think, I know she’d love it. I’ll come to your room and get it after you’ve had your talk with Miss Porter. Thank you. I was trying to rig up something out of these,” she shook the flowers and hat, “but a tam will save the day.”

While this conversation was going on, Lois had been explaining their difficulty to Miss Porter.

“‘Women in History.’ That ought to be easy.” Miss Porter thought for a minute. “Mrs. Baird really wants you to go as your favorite characters? Lois, who is your favorite heroine?”

“Jeanne d’Arc, the martyred Maid of Orleans,” Lois replied dramatically. “Do you think I might go as Jeanne d’Arc?” she asked eagerly.

“I like that,” Polly interrupted. “I thought at the Hallow-e’en party I was to be a Jeanne d’Arc. Oh, well, I give up my rights for this once; besides,” she added seriously, “I don’t really love her the way you do.”

“Won’t armor be hard to imitate?” Miss King asked.

Miss Porter walked over beside the window and took down a framed picture from the wall. She held it behind her back.

“Armor won’t be necessary,” she said. “Lois, have you ever seen the Jeanne d’Arc painting by Jules Bastien-Lepage, at the Metropolitan Museum in New York City?”

“Oh, yes, of course, I saw it this vacation. She’s standing in the woods, just in peasant clothes. I love it. She looks as if she were seeing visions. You remember it, Poll?” Lois was all excitement.

“Here’s a copy of it,” Miss Porter said, producing the picture. “And Lois, I declare you look like her. There, you may keep this print to refer to, it ought to be very easy to find a peasant’s costume. Now Polly, who’s your favorite heroine?”

Polly rumpled her hair, hesitated, and rumpled her hair again.

“She’s not very well known, at least, I never heard any one talk about her,” she answered, “but I think she’s the bravest woman that ever lived. We had a book about her at home, that I used to read and re-read on rainy days.”

“Well, what’s her name?” Lois demanded impatiently.

“Florence Nightingale, the Angel of the Crimea,” Polly said, very solemnly.

“Oh, Polly, do you love her, too?” Miss King’s eyes were shining. “So do I.”

“You couldn’t choose a better woman to portray, dear child,” Miss Porter spoke up. “You’ll find the Seniors know all about her. They are studying about the Crimean War this winter.”

“Please tell me who she was, I never even heard of her,” said Lois apologetically.

Miss King began: “She was an Englishwoman, the first one to go out as a nurse for the soldiers. She thought that if they fought for their country, the least their country could do for them was to give them proper care when they were wounded. At first the generals resented her interfering and thought she was fussy because she wanted clean hospitals and clean food—”

“But the soldiers adored her,” Polly interrupted, and then carried away by the theme, she continued. “She always walked through the long hospital wards every night and they used to turn and kiss her shadow on the wall as she passed, and they named her the Angel of the Crimea. Oh, she was so brave. All the hardships she went through, cold and hunger.” Polly stopped speaking, but her thoughts went back to the stirring scenes she had read about and thrilled over so often in a certain little window seat off the broad stairway in her old home.

Miss King’s voice recalled her, “I can give you a costume, one of my ’kerchiefs will do, and I know how to make a Nightingale cap. We’ll part your hair in the middle and fix it low on your neck and—”

They took the rest of the afternoon to discuss the plans. It was not until the dressing hour that Polly and Lois saw Betty again. She had apparently found her costume without any trouble, for she had been skating all afternoon.

“The ice was bully,” she greeted them. “Where have you been all this time?”

“With Miss Porter; did you find your costume?” Polly answered.

“Yes, first thing. Have you decided what you’re going as?”

“Yes, but we’re not telling,” Lois teased. “We thought out peachy ones.”

“Ah, please.”

“No, never.”

“Do you know what any of the others are going as?”

The conversation was being shouted from room to room.

“No, do you?”

“Connie is going as Lady Macbeth.”

“What, why she’s not historical, she’s Shakespearean,” Polly protested.

“Connie insists she was a real woman, and that Shakespeare knew all about her. Anyway, she says she’s going to walk in her sleep and say: ‘Out, damned spot.’”

“Are you really, Con?” Lois raised her voice so that it could be heard at the other end of the corridor.

“Am I really what?” came Connie’s reply.

“Going as Lady Macbeth at the party?”

“Of course I am. She was a real person.”

“Well, she wasn’t very well known,” Angela added her voice to the others.

“Maybe not, to the uneducated,” Connie said loftily, “but she will be after the party.”

There was a minute of hilarious laughter, that ended as the study hour bell rang for silence.

After dinner, Lois and Polly, their weighty problem of costumes off their minds, were talking of valentines.

“If we could only think of something different, there are no really good ones at the store,” Lois said, rummaging in the closet for the peanut butter jar.

“I know it. I bought some but they are no good. How do you send them, through the mails?” Polly asked.

“No, the Seniors make a big red box and put it in the Assembly Room valentine morning, and everybody puts their letters in it. The box is opened at the party and the valentines are given out.”

“How would it be to make some red cardboard hearts and write verses on them?”

“Make them up, do you mean?”

“Yes, about the girls.”

“Fine, let’s try—but first let’s get comfy.”

Lois’ definition of comfy was to sit tailor fashion on a bed surrounded by pillows, with jam, crackers and other eatables near at hand.

Polly preferred the window seat, it was broad and cozy, and you could always look out of the window when you wanted inspiration.

“All ready,” Lois said, sitting down. “Give me a pencil. Now, who first?”

“You take Bet, and I’ll take Connie,” Polly said.

They both wrote for a minute, and then Lois read:

No, that’s no good.“

“It is good,” Polly protested feebly, “but it’s not especially original.”

“That’s awful,” Lois insisted, drawing a heavy line through the words.

“What’s yours to Connie?”

“That rimes,” Lois said reluctantly. “But there’s nothing the matter with Con’s manners, so it doesn’t make sense.”

“That’s just it,” Polly agreed hopelessly. “We can’t write sense that rimes, because we’re not poets.”

“Betty can, let’s get her to help. You go, I’m so comfy.”

“All right, lazy one, don’t eat all the jam before I get back,” and Polly left, to return in a few minutes with Betty.

“Original valentines, that’s a bully idea,” she said when the plan had been explained to her. “Let’s start with Connie.”

Polly and Lois agreed. They did not think it necessary to say that they had already started with Connie.

“Four lines are enough, let’s see, what rimes with valentine? Columbine, turpentine—aha! I’ve got it.” Betty scribbled furiously. “How’s this?

“Oh, Bet, that’s great. How did you ever think of it?” Polly was filled with admiration.

“Oh, genius is burning tonight, that’s all,” Betty laughed. “Now let’s think of one for Angela.”

“Something about Latin for her, don’t you think?” Polly said.

The suggestion was enough for Betty. “Fine, dine, pine,” she chanted. “Listen:

Lois and Polly looked at each other in speechless wonder, and Betty, now thoroughly started, wrote absurd jingles to all the girls. She reached the height of her achievement in Louise Preston.

“Read it again, Bet, it’s the best of all,” Polly said, delighted. And Lois spread a cracker inches thick with jam, and presented it—

“To the Poet,” she said. “I haven’t a laurel wreath so this will have to do.”

“You can’t eat it until you’ve read the poem again,” Polly insisted.

“Oh, all right.” Betty consulted her pad.

“I don’t think much of it, the meter changes,” Betty said critically.

“That’s all right, as long as it doesn’t change in the same verse,” Polly replied. “I think it’s great. Who next?”

“Oh, no more tonight,” Betty groaned, “give me my cracker. I’m starved.”

“No time, there goes the silence bell.” Lois laughed.

“No time? Just watch me,” and Betty put the whole cracker in her mouth at once, and left for her own room.

“Good-night,” Polly and Lois called after her, but she could only nod in response.

The party was at its height. Every age and every country was represented in the costumes. Betsy Rosses, Grace Darlings and Pocahontases abounded among the younger children. And there was every known character from Agrippa of Roman fame, to Queen Victoria, among the upper school. High ruffs danced with ’kerchiefs, and French heels, with sandals. In fact, every one had taken so much interest in their costume that the Seniors and faculty, who were acting as judges, were hard put to find any one particular girl who outshone the rest.

Lois and Betty had drifted off to a corner of the room, during the refreshments. They made a curious picture against the boughs of green that decked the walls. Betty was a stolid Indian maid, from the beaded moccasins to her parted hair, her face was smeared with grease paint, and she had tribal marks all over her forehead and cheeks. Polly looked very efficient in her immaculate nurse’s costume, her hair was parted severely, and she had on a soft white winged cap. Over her uniform she wore a long gray cape. No one had been able to name her, and after the guessing was over she spent her time in explaining, and exalting Florence Nightingale.

As for Lois, Miss Porter was right when she said that she looked like Bastien-Lepage’s picture of Jeanne d’Arc, and certainly rags became her. She had found a bodice, that laced over a white blouse, and an old patched skirt. Miss Porter had fixed her hair in a soft careless knot, and as she stood beside Polly and Betty, a little tired from the excitement of the evening, there was a far away, dreamy look in her eyes that bespoke the seeing of glorious visions.

“Louise asked me if we sent her that valentine,” Lois said, between sips of lemonade.

“Did you tell her we did?” Polly inquired.

“Yes, I did, because she said it was the sweetest one she’d received, and I just had to let her know that Bet wrote it.”

Betty said: “Oh, shucks, why did you do that?” and changed the subject by asking: “Who do you think will get the prize?”

The answer was cut short as Angela, who was Catharine of Russia, and Connie joined them.

“Well, Lady Macbeth,” Polly greeted them, “have you established your claim to being a real historical character yet?”

“I have, doubter,” Connie answered haughtily. “There was a real Lady Macbeth, Mrs. Baird says so, and, ‘sure she is an honorable man, woman,’ I mean, ‘Therefore, avaunt and quit my sight, let the earth hide thee, and thy base mockery.’”

Angela put her hand over Connie’s mouth. “Don’t mind her, she’s been talking like this all evening,” she said. “Did you get the packages that were in the express-room?”

“Packages, no, where are they?” Polly demanded.

“Why, I saw them before dinner, there were three, just alike, and addressed to you and Lo, and Bet.”

“Let’s get them this minute,” Betty said, starting for the door. “Come on with us.”

They threaded their way through the crowd of dancing girls, and raced for the express-room.

“I bet it’s a joke,” Lois said as she reached for the electric switch.

But when the light was turned on, sure enough there were three packages, piled one on the other, on the table.

“Open them quick,” Connie commanded. “I am dying of curiosity.”

Off came the wrappers, and there was a shout of joy as three heart-shaped boxes of candy appeared.

“How wonderful!”

“My favorite kind!”

“What adorable boxes!”

“They’re painted on silk.”

“How sweet!”

“Who could have sent them?” Lois asked.

“Mr. Pendleton, perhaps,” Betty suggested.

“No, it’s not Uncle Roddy’s writing,” Polly said; “besides, he sent me a little gold heart, yesterday.”

“Open them, perhaps there’s a card or something inside,” Angela suggested. This proved to be the case.

Polly opened hers first, and the rest watched eagerly.

“It just says: ‘A friend of a very dear friend of yours,’” she read. “Who can that be? Read yours, Lo.”

“Mine says: ‘In remembrance of a charming evening.’”

“Listen, I know,” Betty exclaimed. “‘From a devoted admirer, once mayor of a certain city.’ Don’t you see, it’s Mr. Whittington, that friend of your uncle’s, Polly.”

“Of course it is, and the very dear friend of mine is Uncle Roddy,” Polly exclaimed delightedly.

“The charming evening must be the night we went to see ‘Peter Pan,’” Lois said. “Wasn’t it nice of him to remember it.”

“But why does he say ‘once mayor of a certain city’?” Connie inquired, re-reading Betty’s card.

“Oh, that’s because Bet nicknamed him Lord Mayor of London,” Polly explained. “His name is really Dick Whittington.”

They each selected a candy, and munched in happy silence.

“Lois Farwell, Lois Farwell. Oh, Lois,” a voice called suddenly from the depths of the hall. “Where are you?”

“Here, in the express-room,” Lois answered; “What is it?”

Dot Mead poked her head in the doorway.

“You’re wanted upstairs, right away, hurry!”

“Why?” chorused everybody.

“Oh, never mind,” Dot said, mysteriously, “only hurry.”

They were no sooner in the Assembly Hall again before Mrs. Baird tapped the little desk bell for silence.

“Girls, the Seniors have decided to award the prize of the evening to Jeanne D’Arc, impersonated by Lois Farwell. Lois, will you come here, dear?”

The girls made an opening through the center of the room. Lois, too mystified for words, walked slowly up to the platform. Mrs. Baird presented her with a tiny silver loving cup. “This gives me very great pleasure, my dear,” she said smiling, “because Jeanne D’Arc is one of my favorite heroines, too.”

Lois tried to stammer her thanks. Just then Louise Preston stepped forward with a wreath of laurel. “Here’s the crown that goes with it, Lo,” she whispered. “Kneel down.”

Lois knelt on the lower step, and Louise placed the wreath on her head.

“I crown you the most beautiful picture of the evening,” she said. And the girls broke out in heartiest applause.

“I knew it, I knew it,” Miss Porter whispered to Miss King. “She’s exquisite. See how her eyes sparkle when she blushes. She’s exactly the sensitive, delicate type, for a Jeanne D’Arc.”

“She is lovely,” Miss King agreed, in her frank way. “But if I’d had the awarding of the prize, Polly would have had it. She’s a splendid girl, she gave me a sweater, as well as a tam for Martha. I love that spirit.”

Lois went to bed, elated at her success, and the praise she had received. She smiled delightedly at her reflection in the mirror.

“I wonder,” she mused, “if any one will ever tell Mother about this. I would like her to know but, of course, I can’t myself.”