her power to help
matters forward.

"It will give you a splendid opportunity for getting to know the younger
girls," she assured Lorraine. "I'm very glad you thought of it."

Determined to make the first exhibition as representative as possible,
its enthusiastic originator divided it into sections, and put up notices
inviting contributions of all sorts from all quarters. At home she held
a review of her own possible exhibits and Monica's, and shook her head
over them.

"I don't call ourselves a really clever family!" she acknowledged. "We
plod along in our own way, but we don't blaze out into leather work or
ribbon embroidery or hand-made lace."

"What about my fretwork basket for Rosemary?" demanded Monica, rather
nettled.

"Mervyn made the best half of it, and it was crooked at that," returned
Lorraine frankly. "I shouldn't have cared to show it as a specimen of
Forrester handicraft. I don't think any of our efforts are much of a
credit to us. I vote you and I go in for Natural History instead. Let's
make a collection of all the ferns in the neighbourhood. Dorothy's
bringing pressed flowers, and Vivien her butterflies, but I haven't
heard of anybody taking up the ferns. We'll rummage round on Saturday
afternoon, and get all the kinds we can, and plant them in that tin dish
that's under the greenhouse shelf."

"Is it to be your collection or mine?" asked Monica doubtfully.

"Don't be nasty! We'll each have one if you like. You may have the tin
for yours, and I'll use that big photographic developing dish for mine.
Will that content you, you spoilt baby?"

"Right oh!" conceded Monica magnanimously. "But if I do any more
fretwork before the exhibition, I'm going to show it. It'll be as nice
as Jill's or Greta's, you bet!"

Having decided upon a representative collection of ferns as their
_piece de resistance_ for the social gathering, the next and most
important step was to get the specimens. Armed with baskets and trowels,
Lorraine and Monica made several expeditions into the country lanes, and
came home burdened with spoils. To identify their treasures was a harder
task. Lorraine pored over the illustrations in Sowerby's _British
Ferns_, and got horribly mixed between Lastrea dilatata and Athyrium
Felix-foemina.

"I know I shall put all the names wrong," she declared, "but I'll make a
shot at them, anyway."

"If you want ferns," said Mervyn, who came whistling into the
breakfast-room where the girls were