CHAPTER IV

A THANKSGIVING DINNER

The first direct effect of the club was far from pleasant to Edna, for
she forgot all about studying a certain lesson, and did not remember
about it till she and Dorothy met at school on Monday morning, and then
she was overcome with fear lest she should be called upon to recite
something of which she knew scarcely anything. However, by dint of peeps
at the book between whiles, after devoting to it all the time she had
before school was called to order, she managed to get through the
recitation, yet not without many misgivings and a rapid beating of the
heart when Miss Ashurst called upon her. Edna was always such a
conscientious child about her lessons that Miss Ashurst rather
overlooked the fact that upon this occasion she was not quite as glib as
usual, and she took her seat with a feeling of great relief, determining
that she would not forget her lessons another Saturday.

There was more than one opportunity that day to exercise the rule of the
G. R. Club, and the girls of the Neighborhood Club, as they called
theirs, were a little surprised at the appearance of good-will shown by
the others.

"Oh, I know just what they are up to," Clara Adams told her friends;
"they want to get in with us and are being extra sweet. I know that is
exactly their trick. Don't you girls pay any attention to them. Of
course we could let Jennie Ramsey in, because she lives on our street,
but the others, we couldn't any more than we could Betty Lowndes or
Jessie Hill."

"Well, it seems to me if they are good enough for Jennie Ramsey to go
with they are good enough for us," returned Nellie Haskell.

"No, I'm not going to have them," replied Clara, "and if you choose to
go over to them, Nellie Haskell, you can just make up your mind that
I'll have no more to do with you." So Nellie succumbed although she did
smile upon Dorothy when the two met and was most pleasant when Edna
offered to show her about one of the lessons.

Agnes advised that the girls make no secret of their club. "It is
nothing to be ashamed of, I am sure," she said, "and if any of the girls
want to join it I am sure they are quite welcome to." And indeed it did
appeal so strongly to some of the older girls that before the week was
out several new members were enrolled, and it was decided to change the
time of meeting to Friday afternoon so that those in the city might have
their convenience considered while the girls living in t