ntains for a week. They
will return to Oakdale on the day of Jessica's wedding, and leave for a
long trip west the next morning. That was the best way they could carry
out a compact they made last June to serve as maids of honor for each
other."

Mrs. Harlowe listened to Grace's flow of eager talk with a smile of
content on her fine face. To her fond eyes Grace looked absurdly
immature in her simple frock of white dotted swiss. She was secretly
glad that Overton, rather than marriage, had claimed her alert,
self-reliant daughter for another year. Like every other mother she
wished some day to see Grace happily settled in a home of her own, but
she preferred to think of that someday as being still far distant.

Grace took out of her bag a guest towel she was embroidering. It was the
last of the half dozen towels she had worked for Jessica's hope chest.
She was not fond of needlework. She preferred to spend her spare time
playing golf and tennis, or riding and walking. This, as well as the
hemstitched table cloth and napkins she had completed for Nora, was a
labor of love. Now as she bent painstakingly over her work, she smiled
to herself and wove a tender thread of loyalty and love into the
pattern.

A long clear trill caused her to raise her head quickly and spring to
her feet with, "Here they are, at last!" She ran to meet them.

Three girls, or rather three young women, came loitering through the
gate and up the walk, laughing gayly at something the girl in the center
was relating for their benefit. "Now what has Hippy done?" guessed Grace
shrewdly.

"You might know it was something about him," said Jessica Bright. "This
time it was a case of what was done to him. Tell the lady all over
again, Nora."

"It certainly was funny," dimpled Nora. "You see, Grace, Hippy and Edith
and I were going for a ride, last night, in his new car. We waited and
waited for him and couldn't imagine why he didn't come. About ten
o'clock he came tearing along at a speed that would have made a traffic
officer turn pale. Edith and I were still sitting on the porch. I
pretended I was dreadfully offended until he told me where he had been,
then Edith and I laughed until we almost cried."

"Where had he been?" asked Grace curiously.

The three girls giggled in unison.

"Locked in the cellar," returned Nora mirthfully. "He was all ready to
go for his car when he happened to remember that he wanted a wrench from
the tool chest in the c