"One's no good," said Marian sagely. "Make her a dozen while you're
about it."

"Oh, do they come by dozens?" said Ethel, in an awestruck voice. "Well,
I guess I won't make them then. I'll make her something pretty. A
pincushion all over lace and pin ribbons, or something like that."

"That will be lovely," said Laura. "I shall embroider her a tablecloth."

"You'll never finish it," said Patty, who well knew how soon Laura's
bursts of enthusiasm spent themselves. "You'd better decide on a doily.
Better a doily done than a tablecloth but begun."

"Oh, I'll tell you-what we can do, girls," said Polly Stevens. "Let's
make Patty a tea-cloth, and we'll each write our name on it, and then
embroider it, you know."

"Lovely!" cried Christine. "Just the thing. Who'll hemstitch it? I won't.
I'll embroider my name all right, but I hate to hemstitch."

"I'll hemstitch it," said Elsie Morris. "I do beautiful hemstitching."

"So do I," said Helen Preston. "Let me do half."

"Ethel and I hemstitch like birds," said Lillian Desmond. "Let's each do
a side,--there'll be four sides, I suppose."

"Well, the tea-cloth seems in a fair way to get hemstitched," said
Patty. "You can put a double row around it, if you like, and I'll be
awfully glad to have it. I'll use it the first Saturday afternoon after
I get settled."

"I wish I knew where you're going to live," said Ethel. "I'd like to have
a correct mental picture of that first Saturday afternoon."

"It's a beautiful day for walking," said Polly Stevens. "Let's all go
out, and take a look at the Warner place. Something tells me that you'll
decide to live there."

"I hope something else will tell you differently, soon," said Marian,
"for I'll never give my consent to that arrangement. However, I'd just
as lieve walk out there, if only to convince you what a forlorn old
place it is."

"Come on; let's go, then. We can be back in an hour, and have tea
afterwards. I'll get the key from Mr. Martin, as we go by."

Like a bombarding army the Tea Club stormed the old Warner house, and
once inside its Colonial portal, they made the old walls ring with their
laughter. The wide hall was dark and gloomy until Elsie Morris flung open
the door at the other end, and let in the December sunshine.

"Seek no farther," she cried dramatically. "We have crossed the Rubicon
and found the Golden Fleece! This is the place of all others for our Tea
Club meeting, and it doesn't matter what the res