plained Pearl Harrod.

"He seems to be friendly enough with the Corner House girls," said
Carrie. "If they weren't such stuck-up things----"

"Who says they're stuck up?" demanded her cousin Lucy. "I'm sure Aggie
isn't."

"Trix says she is. And I must say Ruth keeps to herself a whole lot.
She's in my class but I scarcely ever speak to her," said Carrie.

"Now you've said something," laughed Eva Larry. "Ruth isn't a girl who
puts herself forward, believe me!"

"They're all four jolly girls," declared Lucy.

"The kids and all."

"Oh! I don't want any kids out to the house Friday night," said Carrie.

"Do you mean to say you haven't asked Aggie and Ruth?" gasped Pearl.

"Not yet."

"Why not?" demanded Lucy, bluntly.

"Why----I don't know them very well," said Carrie, hastily. "But I _do_
want that Neale O'Neil. So few boys know how to act at a party. And I
wager _he_ dances."

"I can tell you right now," said Lucy, "you'll never get him to come
unless the Corner House girls are invited. Why! they're the only girls
of us all who know him right well."

"I am going to try him," said Carrie Poole, with sudden decision.

She skated right over to Neale O'Neil just as he had finished strapping
on the cobbler's old skates that had been lent him. Carrie Poole was a
big girl--nearly seventeen. She was too wise to attack Neale directly
with the request she had to make.

"Mr. O'Neil," she said, with a winning smile, "I saw you doing the
'double-roll' the other day, and you did it so easily! I've been trying
to get it for a long while. Will you show me--please--just a little?"

Even the gruffest boy could scarcely escape from such a net--and Neale
O'Neil was never impolite. He agreed to show her, and did so. Of course
they became more or less friendly within a few minutes.

"It's so kind of you," said Carrie, when she had managed to get the
figure very nicely. "I'm a thousand times obliged. But it wasn't just
this that I wanted to talk with you about."

Neale looked amazed. He was not used to the feminine mind.

"I wanted to pluck up my courage," laughed Carrie, "to ask you to come
to my party Friday evening. Just a lot of the boys and girls, all of
whom you know, I am sure. I'd dearly love to have you come, Mr. O'Neil."

"But--but I don't really know _your_ name," stammered Neale.

"Why! I'm Carrie Poole."

"And I'm sure I don't know where you live," Neale hastened to say. "It's
very kind of you----"

"Th