"Well, even then I don't see what made her faint," said Nora, who happened to have heard the last remark. "There wasn't anything particularly exciting going on here."

"Oh," replied Belle, "it had something to do with Miss South. I stood where I could see Madame Du Launy's face, and when she fainted she had just met Miss South's eye, and didn't you notice, Miss South looked as if she would like to faint herself!"

"How ridiculous!" said a girl who had newly joined the group, "you always see more than any one else does, Belle."

"What if I do? I am just as often right, and you can see for yourself that Miss South is not here now. I noticed that she hurried away as soon as she could."

"What if she did?" cried Nora; "I do think, Belle, that you are sometimes perfectly ridiculous. Any number of people are not here now, who were in the room half an hour ago."

"Oh, you know what I mean, Nora; mark my words there is something queer about the whole thing."

"How in the world, I wonder, did Madame Du Launy happen to know about the Bazaar?" asked Frances Pounder.

"Why, Frances Pounder, where have you been?" cried Nora.

"Why, yes, Frances Pounder, where have you been?" echoed Belle. "Haven't you heard of the tremendous intimacy that has sprung up between Julia and Madame Du Launy since she rescued her little Fidessa from the park police? It really is a wonderful story, and we all expect Julia to be the old lady's heir."

"Come, come," interrupted Nora, "we can't afford to waste our time gossiping; we should be thankful that Madame Du Launy ventured to come here at all, for she bought any number of things, and paid good prices, and now if we do not return to our tables, we may lose all the patronage of the other old ladies who are wandering about."

So two by two the little crowd dispersed. Some of the girls went behind the tables, while others hovered about, picking and choosing what they should buy according to their purses or their taste.

But to tell all the happenings of that afternoon and evening would take a longer time than can be spared to it now. In the evening not only the fathers and uncles of many of the girls came upon the scene, but Philip and his friends appeared to form a small army of purchasers. The latter were not on the whole inclined to buy very expensive things, though they patronized the refreshment table so steadily that Belle had to beg one of the New York boys to become a.s.sistant cashier. They also almost swept the flower booth clean of cut flowers and plants, to the loss of the little patients in the children's hospital, who might otherwise have been benefited, had any flowers been left over. Yet although I say that they did not buy a great deal I must not be misunderstood. They did carry off all kinds of little things that they thought would raise a laugh in their college rooms. Philip, for example, bought a work-basket, lined with pink and white silk, grumbling as he did so that this was the nearest approach he could find to crimson. Besides that he paid a good price for the doll which he had admired, and which Nora had mischievously reserved for him by pinning to it a card bearing his name.

He also bought a small hammock of twisted ribbons, in which he said he intended to suspend the doll in a conspicuous place over his mantelpiece.

Tom Hurst had to buy two or three tobacco pouches, and in addition he chose a rattle, the covering of which Nora had knitted and decorated with bells.

"Pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw,"

quoted Nora, as he carried away his purchase, at the same time presenting him with a wisp of straws from a broom, which she had tied together with a piece of crimson ribbon. "To be forever cherished,"

responded Tom, as he walked off with his trophies, in a tone that made the usually unsentimental Nora blush.

As to Will Hardon, he lost no time in going to the table over which Frances and Edith presided to enquire for a sofa pillow which had been reserved for him.

"Reserved!" cried Edith in a tone of surprise, for Ruth had taken her into the secret. "I thought it was understood that nothing could be reserved here----"

Will's face fell, for he was very much in earnest.

"Oh, now Miss Blair," he said, "you surely were not in earnest last evening; you know that I had made up my mind to that pillow."

"Wouldn't something else do just as well?" she asked, "this centrepiece for example, _I_ worked this," with an emphasis on the p.r.o.noun.

"Why, it's very pretty," said poor Will, "only I shouldn't know what to do with it, but I'd like it very much, really I would," he hastened to add, as Edith looked a little serious.

"Well, I'm sorry," she responded, "that you fix your affection on such impossible things; now this centrepiece is also disposed of. Mrs. Barlow has bought it, and will take it home this evening."

"Also," exclaimed Will, "you said 'also,' do you mean that the sofa pillow is really gone?"

Edith could not help smiling at his expression of disappointment.

"Here comes Ruth," she said, "ask her;" and Ruth, with her hands full of flowers which she was carrying across the room to Mrs. Pounder, paused for a moment.

"Why, you look as if you were quarreling," she said to Edith, "you and--Mr. Hardon; can't I be umpire?"

"Why, yes," replied Will, "that was just what we wish, for you are the only one who really understands the merits of the case. You remember that cushion?"

Ruth looked sufficiently conscious to make further reply unnecessary.

"Of course you _do_ remember it," continued Will, "and you know that you more than half promised to save it for me. Now n.o.body here at this table seems able to tell me about it, at least Miss Blair isn't, and she ought to, if any one could, tell me just where it is."

"I am not sure," responded Edith, "that you have really put the question to me. At any rate I am positive that I have not made any statement about it."

"But you told me to refer to Miss Roberts, and I thought that that meant that you knew nothing about it."

"Well, honestly, I can't tell you about the cushion," said Ruth; "if any one offered more than one hundred dollars, which I think was your limit, I suppose that it has been sold."

"You think that I did not mean what I said," cried Will.

"Oh, no, indeed, but if any one offered more----"

All this time Edith had been standing with one hand behind her back, and at the last minute she raised her arm, and disclosed the cushion, which a minute before she had brought from its hiding-place beneath the table.

"There, that is mine," exclaimed the young man, "let me have it."

"Well, I declare!" cried Edith, as in surprise, "this card really does bear your name, and so I suppose that I must give you the cushion."

Will leaned forward eagerly. "Yes, it is mine, but," as he glanced at the card, "the price is not right. It is only one-tenth what I expected to pay."

"Why! would you really have paid one hundred dollars for it?" asked Ruth.

"Why not?" he asked.

"Oh, it is so much more than it is worth," she replied. "Even for the Rosas we could not have permitted it."

"Well," he answered, as he handed out the crisp ten dollar bill, which paid the price marked on the pillow, "well, I must make it up to the Rosas in some other way." Then turning toward Edith, "thank you, Miss Blair, for waiting on me, although you did give me a bad quarter of a minute, when you made me believe that I might have missed the purchase which I came expressly to make." So with a pleasant smile, carrying the pretty cushion on one arm, he walked across the room with Ruth.

Belle, as she watched them, could not help thinking how well they looked together, even though for the moment she felt a little jealousy of Ruth's growing popularity. Neither the evening before, nor during the whole progress of the Bazaar, had Belle received any special attention from even one of "the boys" as Philip and his friends were called collectively. Ruth, to be sure, was nearly a year and a half older than "The Four," and it was more natural that she should receive a little more attention of the kind that young ladies receive. But Belle thought that she herself felt as old as she should ever feel, and now since she wore her hair done up, and had skirts that almost touched, she did not see why she should not be treated just as if she were "grown up." To suit her ideas, therefore, of the deportment of a young lady, she had begun to a.s.sume a very coquettish manner. But this, instead of producing the desired effect--that of gaining for her great admiration, only amused the boys, and led them to make fun of her when by themselves.

Edith through Philip, and Nora through her brother, had some knowledge of this fact. But Brenda regarded Belle with more or less awe, and considered her an exceedingly worldly-wise person. When, therefore, Belle proposed to her that instead of selling the water-color painting of which I have spoken, at a fixed price, they should vote it to the most popular young man of their acquaintance, Brenda acquiesced.

"You see it will be this way," said Belle, "we can get people to vote by taking shares."

"How much will the shares be?"

"Oh, a dollar, and we can easily sell a hundred and fifty dollars worth.

I am sure that is a great deal better than letting the picture go for one hundred dollars."

"But isn't that the same as a raffle?"

"No, stupid, of course not."