Betty was the woman judge, and the way she laid down the law was most marvelous, and brought forth many peals of laughter.

Will, in a most ridiculous costume, performed the offices of court clerk.

Mollie impersonated a French flower girl, who had failed to receive pay for bouquets sold to a local dude, a part played by Roy Anderson, and it developed during the court scene, that the dude was engaged to two girls at once, impersonated by Grace and another girl.

There was an irate uncle of one of the girls, none other than Frank Haley, and Allen as the brother of the other girl, who also demanded satisfaction, and the mix-up in the courtroom was most realistic.

"About the funniest thing I ever saw in my life," was Mr. Nelson's comment.

"They are certainly doing remarkably well," answered Mrs. Billette, who chanced to sit near by.

"If those youngsters keep on doing as well as that, they'll all want to go on the professional stage," remarked Mr. Ford.

All during the ice cream and cake part of the entertainment the young performers were feted and congratulated, till they began, as Roy expressed it, "to feel themselves some punkins."

It was late before the last guest had departed, still laughingly bandying jests back and forth, and the Little Captain and the group of her particular chums and followers were left alone. Then--

"I wish it were beginning all over again," said Amy, leaning her head against a pillar of the porch and gazing dreamily up at the stars. "I never had such a good time in my life."

"It seems to me I'm always saying that," sighed Betty, sinking into the hammock, and laughing up at Allen, as he stood before her. "It's wonderful when life is just a succession of good times."

"Betty," he answered, sitting down beside her, and finding her hand under cover of the darkness, "that's my one ambition--to make life for you just a 'succession of good times.'"

"But I guess that never happens to anybody," she said, trying to speak lightly. "And I don't know that just having good times is a very big ambition. No--I--didn't mean that, Allen," she added quickly, seeing she had hurt him. "You've always been altogether too good to me. I--I guess I don't deserve it."

"There's nothing half good enough for you," said Allen fervently.

"Betty," he added, after a slight pause, "I--I may have to go away pretty soon, and before I go I want you to know----"

"Say, Allen, are you going home like a respectable citizen, or shall we have to use force?" It was Roy who accosted him, and Allen muttered something under his breath.

"I'm going home when I get good and ready," he was beginning, when Betty herself jumped to her feet and held out a hand to him.

"It _is_ getting late," she said, "and we're all going to meet to-morrow, anyway, so we won't even say good-bye. _Au revoir,_ everybody. It's been such a night!"

As she stood on the porch waving her hand to them, Allen hesitated a moment, started forward, then ran back again.

"There will come a night," he whispered, close in her ear, "when you won't get rid of me so easily."

And Betty, left alone, smiled a new smile at the stars.

CHAPTER XI

A SLACKER?

Two weeks went by after the great night, two weeks of ceaseless activity. The fame of Betty's lawn party had spread all over Deepdale, and countless smaller affairs on the same order had been given. As imitation is always the sincerest flattery, the girls were delighted.

"For we have the fun of knowing we started it," Mollie had said.

"Yes," said Betty. "We've made people understand that the Red Cross needs money, but, girls, there's another branch of the war work that isn't receiving much attention."

"What's that?" queried Grace, interested. It was just like Betty to have things entirely thought out before she said anything about them.

"I never saw anybody with so many plans as you, Betty. You make my head swim."

"Well, there's the Y.W.C.A.," Betty explained. "It's doing wonderful work, but it will need a great deal more money than it has now, to keep it up in these war times."

"Goodness," said Amy. "I wish we'd thought about it sooner. The boys are sure they're going to be called every day, and if we took time to get up anything like the entertainment we had before, we couldn't have them in it."

"Oh, we couldn't give an affair like that without the boys," said Mollie decidedly, a fact which she would never have admitted in the hearing of the young men themselves. "And I'd hate to give anything tame, after the big success we had with the other one."

"That's just it," Betty pursued, holding a sock up to the light and regarding it critically. "I met Mrs. Barton Ross to-day----"

"Oh, isn't she lovely?" Amy interrupted enthusiastically. "By the time you've talked with her five minutes you're willing to promise her anything in the world."

"Goodness, I wish I had a gift like that," said Grace. "I could talk all day and n.o.body'd do _anything_ for me."

"That's grat.i.tude, isn't it?" said Mollie, in an aggrieved tone.

"Here I walk two whole blocks out of my way, to buy you a box of candy when you didn't even ask me to----"

"Did you say you bought that box of candy for me?" asked Grace bitterly, eying the alluring box, where it lay in Mollie's lap.

"Every time I want one I have to look extra sweet and go down on my knees."

"More ingrat.i.tude," sighed Mollie. "Didn't I hear the doctor say you must stop eating so much ice cream and candy, if you wanted to keep your marvelous complexion?"

"No, you didn't," retorted Grace, "for the simple reason, that I haven't been to the doctor's for over two years."

"That's right, I guess it _was_ your mother," Mollie admitted, wickedly helping herself to a delicious morsel.

"Goodness, my family's been prophesying that thing ever since I can remember," Grace retorted, putting aside her knitting, and drawing nearer to the candy box. "If I had listened to them I'd have worried myself into all sorts of things by this time."

"Instead you'd rather _eat_ yourself into them," sighed Mollie primly, handing over the box with an air of resignation. "Betty, what was it you were saying?"

Betty chuckled.

"First of all, Grace is walking off with your wool," she said. "Look out, Grace, you'll break it."

"It was about Mrs. Barton Ross, wasn't it?" asked Amy patiently.

"Oh, yes! Well, she suggested that we give the same performance over again. Everybody liked it, and any number of people had spoken to her about it, saying they'd like to see it over again. Of course we'd have to leave out the booths and things; they would take too much time to get ready, but we might give the sketch."

"Goodness, that's a regular compliment," gurgled Mollie, knitting furiously. "Instead of--as Roy would say--'getting the hook,' they ask us to do it all over again. I wouldn't have thought any audience would stand for it."

"Well," continued Betty, "I told Mrs. Ross I'd talk it over with you folks, and if we did it at all, it would be for the benefit of the Y.W.C.A. Of course, we don't know how the boys will feel about it."

But the boys were perfectly willing to give the play again, declaring that "if Deepdale could stand for it, they surely could."