rank,' but I say it, and I mean
it," continued Jerry vindictively. "Don't breathe it to anyone, though.
It was a brotherly confidence and Hal would rave if he knew I repeated
it."

"Jerry," whispered Marjorie. Her brief scorn had faded into a faint
frown of anxiety. "I don't think Mr. Atwell is really the best sort of
person for Mignon to go around with. He is ever so much older than she
and, somehow, he doesn't seem sincere. Someone told Muriel that he told
Mignon she would make a wonderful actress. Mignon was boasting of it.
Suppose she were to get an idea of going on the stage. She is so
headstrong she might run away from home and do that very thing if she
happened to feel like it. I don't like her, but I can't help being just
a little bit sorry for her. You know, she hasn't any mother to help her
and love her and advise her. Her father is so busy making money, he
doesn't pay much attention to her. Fathers are splendid, but mothers are
simply splendiferous. I don't know what I'd do without my Captain."
Marjorie sighed in sweet sympathy for all the motherless girls in the
universe.

"Mothers are a grand institution," agreed Jerry, looking a trifle
solemn. "I think mine is just about right. I never thought of Mignon in
that way before. Now, I suppose I'll have to be sorry for her, too. She
doesn't look as though she needed much sympathy just now. She's so
pleased with the way Connie is being ordered about that she can't see
straight. There, he's through with the poor child at last. Come on. It's
time for the chorus to perform. Try to imagine that this good old gym is
the king's palace and that our mutual friend the Crane is a kingly king.
He looks more like a clothes-pole!"

Marjorie was forced to laugh at Jerry's uncomplimentary comparison.
They had no further opportunity for conversation in the busy hour that
followed. Professor Harmon drilled them rigidly, his short hair
positively standing erect with energy, and they were quite ready to
gather their little band together and hurry off to Sargent's for rest
and ice cream when the rehearsal was at last over.

"See here, Connie, why don't you tell that Atwell man to mind his own
business," sputtered Jerry as the six girls walked down the street in
the direction of their favorite haunt.

"He _is_ minding his business," returned Constance ruefully. Her small
face was very pale and her blue eyes were strained and unhappy. "It is
my fault. But he makes me nervous, an