“Racket while you may, for school-room discipline is coming,” laughed Mr. Littell, when he went upstairs unexpectedly early one night and caught the abashed Tucker twins sliding down the banisters.

Both Bob and Betty had wired Mr. Gordon of their safe arrival in Washington, and Bob had also telegraphed his aunts.  While they were at Fairfields a letter reached them from Miss Hope and Miss Charity, describing in glowing terms the boarding house in which they were living and the California climate which, the writers declared, made them feel “twenty years younger.”  So Bob was assured that the elderly ladies were neither homesick nor unhappy and that added appreciably to his peace of mind.

He and Betty found time, too, to slip away from their gay companions and go to the old second-hand bookshop where Lockwood Hale browsed among his dusty volumes.  He had set Bob upon the trail that led him West and brought him finally to his surviving kin, and the boy felt warm gratitude to the absent-minded old man.

Mr. and Mrs. Littell rigidly insisted that the last night before the young folks started for Shadyside must be reserved for final packing and early retirement so that the gay band might begin their journey auspiciously.  The Tuesday evening before the Thursday they were to leave for school, the host and hostess gave a dance for their young people.

“I’m glad to have at least one chance to wear this dress,” observed Bobby, smoothing down the folds of her rose-colored frock with satisfaction.  “The only thing I don’t like about Shadyside, so far, is that restriction about party clothes.”

“I imagine it is a wise rule in many ways,” said Betty sagely, thinking particularly of the Guerin girls, who would probably be hard-pressed to get even the one evening frock allowed.  “You know how some girls are, Bobby; they’d come with a dozen crepe de chine and georgette dresses and about three clean blouses for school-room wear.”

“Like Ruth Gladys Royal,” giggled Bobby.  “I remember her at Miss Graham’s last year.  Goodness, the clothes that girl would wear!  The rest of us didn’t even try to compete.  And, by the way, girls, Ruth Gladys is going to Shadyside.  Her aunt telephoned mother last night while we were at the movies.”

“That’s the girl we went to call on that day we saw Mr. Peabody tackle Bob in the hotel,” Louise explained in an aside to Betty.  “I wonder why every one seems bent and determined to go to Shadyside this year.”

“Because it is a fine school with a half-century reputation,” Bobby, who had studied the catalogue, informed her sister primly.

“I’m not going,” objected Esther.  “I think it’s mean.”

“Mother and dad need one girl at home, dearest,” her mother reminded her, as she came in looking very handsome and kindly in a black spangled net gown.  “All ready, girls?  Then suppose we go down.”

It was a simple and informal dance, as befitted the ages of the guests, but Mr. and Mrs. Littell knew to perfection the secret of making each one enjoy himself.  There were a handful of outside friends invited, and Betty, to whom a party was a never-failing source of delight, felt, as she confided to Bob, as though she were “walking on air.”