"Yes, but to stay home from Gladys' party! Why, those horrid, cruel people in the history book couldn't get up a worse punishment than that!

Mother, say you don't mean it!"

"I won't decide just now; I'll think it over. Meantime, let's see what we can do toward cleaning you up."

The process was an uncomfortable one, and, after Marjorie's poor little face and hands had gone through a course of lemon juice, pumice stone, and other ineffectual obliterators, she felt as if she had had punishment enough.

And the final result was a grayish, smeared-looking complexion, very different from her own usual healthy pink and white.

Greatly subdued, and fearful of the impending punishment, Marjorie lay on a couch in her mother's room, resting after the strenuous exertions of her scrubbing and scouring.

"I do think I'm the very worst child in the whole world," she said, at last. "Isn't it surprising, Mother, that I should be so bad, when you're so sweet and good? Do you think I take after Father?"

Mrs. Maynard suppressed a smile.

"Wait till Father comes home, and ask him that question," she said.

CHAPTER XI

THE HALLOWE'EN PARTY

Mr. and Mrs. Maynard talked over Marjorie's latest prank, and concluded that it would indeed be too great a punishment to keep her at home from the Hallowe'en party.

So her punishment consisted in being kept at home from the Sat.u.r.day meeting of the Jinks Club.

This was indeed a deprivation, as the members of the club were to plan games for the party, but still it was an easier fate to bear than absence from the great event itself.

Marjorie was so sweet and patient as she sat at home, while King and Kitty started off for the Jinks Club, that Mrs. Maynard was tempted to waive the punishment and send her along, too.

But the mother well knew that what she was doing was for her child's own good, and so she stifled her own desires, and let Marjorie stay at home.

Midget was restless, though she tried hard not to show it. She fed the gold-fish, she read in her book of Fairy Tales, she tried amus.e.m.e.nts of various sorts, but none seemed to interest her. In imagination she could see the rest of the Jinks Club seated in the bay at Dorothy Adams', chattering about the party.

"Oh, hum," sighed Marjorie, as she stood looking out of the playroom window, "I do believe I'll never be naughty again."

"What's 'e matter, Middy?" said Rosy Posy, coming along just then.

"Don't you feels dood? Want to p'ay wiv my Boffin Bear?"

Marjorie took the soft, woolly bear, and somehow he was a comforting old fellow.

"Let's play something, Rosy Posy," she said.

"Ess; p'ay house?"

"No; that's no fun. Let's play something where we can bounce around. I feel awful dull."

"Ess," said Rosy Posy, who was amiable, but not suggestive.

"Let's play I'm a hippopotamus, and you're a little yellow chicken, and I'm trying to catch you and eat you up."

Down went Rosy Posy on all-fours, scrambling across the floor, and saying, "Peep, peep"; and down went Marjorie, and lumbered across the floor after her sister, while she roared and growled terrifically.

Mrs. Maynard heard the noise, but she only smiled to think that Marjorie was working off her disappointment that way instead of sulking.

Finally the hippopotamus caught the chicken, and devoured it with fearful gnashing of teeth, the chicken meanwhile giggling with delight at the fun.

Then they played other games, in which Boffin joined, and also Marjorie's kitten, Puff. The days, of late, had been such busy ones that Puff had been more or less neglected, and as she was a socially inclined little cat, she was glad to be restored to public favor.

And so the long morning dragged itself away, and at luncheon-time the Jinks Club sent its members home.

The Maynards were always a warm-hearted, generous-minded lot of little people, and, far from teasing Marjorie about her morning at home, King and Kitty told her everything that had been discussed and decided at the Jinks Club, and brought her the money contributed by the members.

So graphic were their descriptions that Marjorie felt almost as if she had been there herself; and her spirits rose as she realized that her punishment was over, and in the afternoon she could go over to Gladys', and really help in the preparations for the party.

At last the night of the great occasion arrived.

Then it was Marjorie's turn to feel sorry for Kitty, because she was too young to go to evening parties. But Mr. and Mrs. Maynard had promised some special fun to Kitty at home, and she watched Midget's preparations with interest quite untinged by envy.

Kingdon and Marjorie were to go alone at seven o'clock, and Mr. Maynard was to come after them at nine.

"But Gladys said, Mother," said Midge, "that she hoped we'd stay later than nine."

"I hope you won't," said Mrs. Maynard. "You're really too young to go out at night anyway, but as it's just across the street, I trust you'll get there safely. But you must come home as soon as Father comes for you."

"Yes, if he makes us," said Marjorie, smiling at her lenient father, who was greatly inclined to indulge his children.

"If you're not back as soon as I think you ought to be, I shall telephone for you," said Mrs. Maynard; but Marjorie knew from her mother's smiling eyes that she was not deeply in earnest.

Midget had on a very pretty dress of thin white muslin, with ruffles of embroidery. She wore a broad pink sash, and her dark curls were cl.u.s.tered into a big pink bow, which bobbed and danced on top of her head. Pink silk stockings and dainty pink slippers completed her costume, and her father declared she looked good enough to eat.

"Eat her up," said Rosy Posy, who was ecstatically gazing at her beautiful big sister. "Be a hippottymus, Fader, an' eat Mopsy all up!"

"Not till after she's been to the party, Baby. They'll all be expecting her."

Kingdon, quite resplendent in the glory of his first Tuxedo jacket, also looked admiringly at his pretty sister.

"You'll do, Mops," he said. "Come on, let's go. It's just seven."

Mrs. Maynard put a lovely white, hooded cape of her own round Marjorie, and carefully drew the hood up over her curls.

"See that your bow is perked up after you take this off," said the mother, as a parting injunction, and then the two children started off.

The parents watched them from the window, as they crossed the street in the moonlight, and Mrs. Maynard sighed as she said, "They're already beginning to grow up."

"But we have some littler ones," said her husband, gaily, as he prepared for a game of romps with Kitty and Rosy Posy.