Mertelle returned from a
week-end visit to her home. (Her mother was ill and she had been sent
for. Someone in Mae's family was conveniently ill a great deal of the
time.) She brought with her three bracelets of linked scales
representing a serpent swallowing his tail. S. A. S. in tiny letters was
engraved between the emerald eyes.

"They are perfectly sweet!" said Patty, with grateful appreciation. "But
why a snake?"

"It isn't a snake; it's a serpent," Mae explained. "To represent
Cleopatra. She was the Serpent of the Nile. We'll be Serpents of the
Hudson."

With the appearance of the bracelets, curiosity in the S. A. S.
increased, but unlike the other secret societies which had appeared from
time to time, its _raison d'etre_ remained a mystery. The school really
commenced to believe that the society had a secret. Miss Lord, who had
the reputation of being curious, stopped Patty one day as she was
leaving the Virgil class, and admired the new bracelet.

"And what may be the meaning of S. A. S.?" she inquired.

"It's a secret society," said Patty.

"Ah, a secret society!" Miss Lord smiled. "Then I suppose the name is a
DEEP MYSTERY." She lowered her voice, as she said it, to sepulchral
depths.

There was something peculiarly irritating about Miss Lord's manner; it
always suggested that she was amused by the vagaries of her little
pupils. She did not possess Miss Sallie's happy faculty of meeting them
on a level. Miss Lord peered down from above (through lorgnettes).

"Of course the name is a secret," said Patty. "If that got out, it would
give the whole thing away."

"And what is the object of this famous society? Or is that too a
secret?"

"Why, yes, that is, I mustn't tell you exactly."

Patty smiled up at Miss Lord with the innocent, seraphic gaze that
always warned those who knew her best that is was wisest to let her
alone.

"It's a sort of branch of the Sunshine Society," she added
confidentially. "We're to--well--to smile on people, you know, and make
them like us."

"I see!" said Miss Lord, with an air of friendly understanding. "Then S.
A. S. stands for 'Sunshine and Smiles?'"

"Oh, please! You mustn't say it out loud," Patty lowered her voice and
threw an anxious glance over her shoulder.

"I wouldn't tell anybody for worlds," Miss Lord promised solemnly.

"Thank you," said Patty. "It would be dreadful if it got out."

"It is a very sweet, womanly society," Miss Lord added approvingly.