"I believe it. They tell me that eating fish is good for the brain, so all brains must be in close juxtaposition to people's stomachs."

"Wha's dat 'juxypotation,' chile?" demanded Jinny, rolling her eyes. "I never heerd the like of sech big wo'ds as you young ladies talks. _Is_ dere seech a wo'd as 'juxypotation?'"

"There is not, Jinny," chuckled Laura. "She's fooling you."

"I knowed she was," said the cook, showing all her white teeth in the broadest kind of a smile. "I be'lieb de men wot makes dictionaries oughtn't to put in 'em no wo'ds longer dan two syllabubs."

"Great!" crowed Bobby, and then choked over a mouthful of Laura's flaky pie crust.

"Come out on the side porch," said Laura, her face quite flushed. "I've baked my complexion as well as the pies."

"Your cheeks are as red as Lily Pendleton's were last Tuesday at school.

Did you hear what Gee Gee did to her?" asked Bobby.

"No."

"Real mean of Gee Gee," chuckled Bobby, as the girls took comfortable seats. "But Lily deserved it."

"Tell me-Gossip!" said Laura.

Bobby merely made a grimace at her and finished the last crumb of pie.

"It was chemistry cla.s.s. We had done simple tricks and Gee Gee had explained the 'wheres and whereofs' in her most lucid manner. Lily had laid it on pretty thick that day."

"Laid what on?" demanded Laura.

"What she puts on her cheeks sometimes. You know, it isn't a rush of blood to her head that gives her that delicate cerise flush once in a while. I think she tries to emulate Hester Grimes's cabbage-rose cheeks.

However, Gee Gee came close enough to her to behold the 'painted Lily's'

cheeks. Wow! Gee was mad!" exclaimed the irrepressible. "You know she's as near-sighted as she can be-gla.s.ses and all. But this time she spotted Lily.

"She comes up carefully behind her, with a clean damp sponge in her hand.

"'Young ladies,' says she, 'we will have one other experiment before excusing you to your next cla.s.s. Notice that!' and she gave one dab of the sponge to Lily's right cheek. You never saw a girl change color so suddenly!" giggled Bobby. "And only on one side!"

"Don't you come into _my_ cla.s.s, Miss, without washing your face, another time!" exclaims Gee Gee. And you can bet she meant it. And Lily carefully removed all the 'penny blush' before she went back to recitation again.

"Foolish girl," said Laura, softly.

"Nothing but a miracle will ever give that girl a natural blush,"

declared Bobby, reflectively. "You might work it on her, Laura."

"How do you mean?"

"Aren't you a miracle worker?" laughed Bobby.

"I guess not."

"I hear you are. Colonel Swayne's telling all over town what a head you have got! You certainly have got him going, Laura--"

"Sh! You talk worse slang than Chet. Don't let mother hear you."

"I learned part of it from Chet," declared Bobby, unblushingly. "But that was certainly a great scheme about the stage thunderstorm. Some folks laughed and said it was all nonsense. But Nellie's father says it was all right. And the Colonel has worked it himself once since, and Mrs. Kerrick has got the habit of sleeping at night now, instead of trying to do so in the afternoon, as she used."

"Well, she's not complaining about us girls making a noise in the field-that's one good thing," said Laura, with a sigh of genuine satisfaction.

"Lucky she is not. Think of the racket there will be there next Friday afternoon. But, oh! I can only be there as a spectator," groaned Bobby.

"Bobby, dear," said Laura. "I wish I really was a magician-or something like that. A prophetess would do, I guess-a seeress. Then I could explain the mystery of the fire in Mr. Sharp's office and your troubles-for the time being, at least-would be over."

"There's the hateful cat that made me all the trouble!" exclaimed Bobby, suddenly, shaking her clenched fist.

Laura peered around the vines which screened the porch and saw Hester Grimes climbing into an automobile, which was standing before the gate of the butcher's premises.

"She _did_ testify against you," sighed Laura. "But there really was a fire."

"Just the same, if Hester hadn't said she saw me throw something into the basket, Gee Gee would never have put it up to the princ.i.p.al so strong."

Hester was evidently waiting for her mother to appear from the house.

They were probably going shopping. Before Laura spoke again she and Bobby heard-as did everybody else who might be listening on the block-Mrs. Grimes shouting to Hester from an upper window:

"Hes! have you seen my veil?"

"No, Ma," replied Miss Grimes.

"My ecru veil-you know, the big one-the automobile veil?"

"I haven't got it, Ma," shouted back Hester.

Laura leaped to her feet.

"What's the matter, Laura?" demanded Bobby.

"Wait a minute, Bobby," whispered the older girl.

"Where are you going?"

"I've got an errand to do," said Laura, evasively, and darted into the house.

She ran up to her room, seized something from a bureau drawer, stuffed it behind the bib of her big ap.r.o.n, and ran down the front stairway and out of the house by that door.

The Grimes's car was still waiting. Mrs. Grimes-a much overdressed woman with the same natural bloom on her coa.r.s.e face that Hester possessed-was just coming out of the house.

Laura darted down the walk out at the gate. She flew up the street and reached the automobile before Mrs. Grimes had stepped in. That lady was saying to her daughter:

"Hester! I 'most know you took that veil and lost it. You took it the night you went car-riding alone. You remember? When you said you had been as far as Robinson's picnic grounds--"

"Oh, Mrs. Grimes!" gasped Laura, "is this your veil?"