most excited the young people was the deep mystery
of certain proceedings at the Minot house. No one but Frank, Ralph,
and Mamma knew what it was, and the two boys nearly drove the others
distracted by the tantalizing way in which they hinted at joys to come,
talked strangely about birds, went measuring round with foot-rules, and
shut themselves up in the Boys' Den, as a certain large room was called.
This seemed to be the centre of operations, but beyond the fact of
the promised tree no ray of light was permitted to pass the jealously
guarded doors. Strange men with paste-pots and ladders went in,
furniture was dragged about, and all sorts of boyish lumber was sent
up garret and down cellar. Mrs. Minot was seen pondering over heaps
of green stuff, hammering was heard, singular bundles were smuggled
upstairs, flowering plants betrayed their presence by whiffs of
fragrance when the door was opened, and Mrs. Pecq was caught smiling all
by herself in a back bedroom, which usually was shut up in winter.

"They are going to have a play, after all, and that green stuff was the
curtain," said Molly Loo, as the girls talked it over one day, when they
sat with their backs turned to one another, putting last stitches in
certain bits of work which had to be concealed from all eyes, though
it was found convenient to ask one another's taste as to the color,
materials, and sizes of these mysterious articles.

"I think it is going to be a dance. I heard the boys doing their steps
when I went in last evening to find out whether Jack liked blue or
yellow best, so I could put the bow on his pen-wiper," declared Merry,
knitting briskly away at the last of the pair of pretty white bed-socks
she was making for Jill right under her inquisitive little nose.

"They wouldn't have a party of that kind without Jack and me. It is only
an extra nice tree, you see if it isn't," answered Jill from behind the
pillows which made a temporary screen to hide the toilet mats she was
preparing for all her friends.

"Every one of you is wrong, and you'd better rest easy, for you won't
find out the best part of it, try as you may." And Mrs. Pecq actually
chuckled as she, too, worked away at some bits of muslin, with her back
turned to the very unsocial-looking group.

"Well, I don't care, we've got a secret all our own, and won't ever
tell, will we?" cried Jill, falling back on the Home Missionary Society,
though it was not yet begun.

"Never!" answere