if it was a bomb? Maybe she's
inviting you to supper. She does ask the boys sometimes."

This possibility was so encouraging that the startled expression in the
lad's eyes gave place to a serener light. Perhaps after all the
missive did not portend the calamity that a note from school usually
did. Maybe his algebra was all right and he had not flunked his Latin.
The fates may have graciously intervened.

Courageously he tore open the envelope; then a sharp cry came from his
lips.

"Hurrah!" he cried. "Mother! Mother! Where are you?"

"Here, dear, in my room. Is anything the matter?"

Carl rushed off unceremoniously, leaving the mystified Mary alone in
the middle of the kitchen.

"Oh, Ma," he panted, "what do you suppose? We're going, after
all--every one of us! Think of it! We're going!"

"Going where? Have you taken leave of your senses, sonny? What are you
talking about, pray?"

"We're going to the Coulters', Ma," asserted Carl, waving the white
envelope above his head in a frenzy of delight. "Look! Here's the bid.
And across the bottom of the paper Mr. Coulter himself has written to
say that he's sorry the invitation has been so delayed and he hopes my
mother and all of us--even the baby--will come. Gee!"

Quite exhausted, Carl dropped into a chair.

"But why should Mr. Coulter send this invitation to you?"

"I don't know, I'm sure. Maybe Hal Harling or somebody told him how
disappointed I was at not being asked," returned Carl serenely.

"Mercy! I hope not," ejaculated his horrified mother.

"Why not?"

"Why, it would be almost like asking Mr. Coulter for an invitation."

"He wouldn't care, I guess," came comfortably from Carl. "There's
plenty of room and there'll be food enough so a few people more or less
wouldn't bother him."

"But I wouldn't think of going to a party, or letting you, if you had
demanded in so many words to be invited," returned Mrs. McGregor with a
toss of her head.

"You don't mean to say, Ma, that you're thinking of not going," her son
gasped.

"I certainly shall not stir a step to Mr. Coulter's until I find out
how we happened to receive this remarkable invitation."

"Ma!"

"I sha'n't," repeated his mother. "Why, the bare idea of your trying to
get a card to that wedding reception!"

"I didn't try to, Mother; honest, I didn't," protested Carl. "I didn't
ask anybody to do a thing for me. I was only fooling when I said that.
Of course Hal Harling knows well enough th