for Emily Elizabeth. Let the past and the
future take care care of itself. Hurrah for the glorious present! I hope
you giddy, gorgeous creatures can appreciate my noble, self-sacrificing
spirit. While you have been engaged in wearing your costliest raiment
and eating up a delectable dinner, I've been obliged to lurk like a
criminal in J. Elfreda's room, attired in somber, sable weeds."

"But when did you arrive, Emma?" asked Arline. "Of course we know now
that you and Elfreda perpetrated this dark but delightful plot. How you
managed to slip into the cottage without any of us seeing you is a
greater mystery than the Seeress of the Seven Veils could ever hope to
be."

"Oh, it was all planned beforehand," explained Emma cheerfully. "While
you loyal Sempers were out on the lawn this afternoon, stringing
lanterns, I was shut up in a third-story room peering owlishly down at
you through the shutters. I arrived here this morning, about an hour
before the rest of you. Kind and hospitable hostess that she seems to
be, I grieve to relate that I had hardly paid my respects to Mrs. Briggs
when J. Elfreda shut me up in that same third-story chamber with my
breakfast and left me to pine while she went gayly gallivanting down to
the train to meet you. When I have a little time I shall write a book
and entitle it, 'Locked Up for the Day; or All in the Name of
Friendship.'"

Emma beamed languishingly upon her listeners in order better to impress
them with her unfaltering loyalty to their interests. "In order to clear
my jailer of any unjust aspersions which unkind persons may cast upon
her, I might also add that she brought me some luncheon. As for my
dinner, I had finished it before you began yours. So you see, she at
least kept me in a well-nourished condition."

"Now we can be perfectly happy!" exulted Grace. "You are the last touch
needed to complete the reunion."

"I am always a blessing," returned Emma modestly. "To-night I happened
to be one in disguise. But I yearn to cast aside my sable robes of
prophesy and emerge from my room in gala garments. Lead me to my trunk,
J. Elfreda. The night is yet young and I'm anxious to make the most of
it."

"I never once thought of Emma Dean in connection with Elfreda's
fortune-teller," confessed Kathleen West ruefully. "I am afraid I'm
losing my nose for news."

"Neither did I," admitted Anne. "But you guessed it, didn't you,
Miriam?" Recalling the latter's inspiration of that after