the sigh at her failure to be one of the girls to
perform this delightful task; but the paper being brought, she soon
forgot her disappointment, in having something to do.

"We must all tear it up into strips," said the chairman, and, beginning
on a sheet, "Lucy, you can be giving around the pencils."

And presently the whole committee was racking its brains over this
terribly important question thrust upon them.

"It must be something that will always reflect credit on the Salisbury
School," observed Alexia, leaning her chin on her hand while she played
with her pencil.

"Ugh! do be still." Lucy, on the other side, nudged her. "I can't think,
if anybody speaks a word."

"And fit in well with those old portraits," said Clem, with a look at
Alexia.

"Well, I hope and pray that we won't give her anything old. I want it
spick, span, new; and to be absolutely up-to-date." Alexia took her chin
out of her hand, and sat up decidedly. "The idea of matching up those
mouldy old portraits!--and that house just bursting with antiques."

"Ugh! do hush," cried the girls.

"And write what you want to, Alexia, on your own slip, and keep still,"
said Silvia, wrinkling her brows; "you just put something out of my
head; and it was perfectly splendid."

"But I can't think of a thing that would be good enough," grumbled
Alexia, "for the Salisbury School to give. Oh dear me!" and she regarded
enviously the other pencils scribbling away.

"My list is done." Amy Garrett pinched hers into a little three-cornered
note, and threw it into Polly's lap.

"And mine--and mine." They all came in fast in a small white shower.

"Oh my goodness!" exclaimed Alexia, much alarmed that she would be left
out altogether. "Wait, Chairman--I mean, Polly," and she began
scribbling away for dear life.

"Oh dear me!" The chairman unfolded the first strip, and began to read.
"A piano--why, girls, Miss Anstice can't play."

"Well, it would look nice in that great big drawing-room," said Clem,
letting herself out with a very red face.

"Oh, my! you wrote _a piano_!" Alexia went over backward suddenly to
lie flat on the floor and laugh. "Besides, there is one in that house."

"An old thing!" exclaimed Clem in disdain.

"Well, let's see; here's something nice"--Polly ran along the list--"a
handsome chair, a desk, a cabinet. Those are fine!"

"Clem has gone into the furniture business, I should think," said
Philena.

"And a cabinet!" exclaimed Amy