Betty Gordon obligingly cantered across the platform on a chair and won applause by her realistic interpretation of western riding.  Bobby convulsed the room with her imaginary efforts to cut and fit a dress, her mistakes being glaring ones, for Bobby never touched a needle if she could help it.  Clever Constance Howard had gone for her ukulele and played it charmingly.  Libbie insisted on giving the “balcony scene” from Romeo and Juliet, in which she was supported by the unwilling Frances, who was certainly the stiffest Romeo who ever walked the stage.

“Ada Nansen,” called the leader, when the eight chums had made their individual contributions to the program.

CHAPTER XIV

A SATURDAY RACE

Ada had been watching the others with a contempt she made little attempt to conceal.  When her name was called she walked to the platform and faced the leader defiantly.

“What can you do best, Ada?” came the familiar question.

Ada smiled patronizingly.

“Spend money,” she said briefly.

“Do that,” said the young leader calmly.

“How can I spend money here?” demanded Ada angrily.  “There’s nothing to buy.  I call that silly.”

“Then you admit you can’t spend money?”

“No such thing!” Ada stamped her foot, furious at such stupidity.  “I say
I can’t spend it here where there is nothing to buy.  You let me go to
Edentown, and I’ll show you whether I can spend money or not.”

“The order of the first degree of the Mysterious Four is that the candidate must do what she can do best,” repeated the veiled figure insistently.  “What can you do best?”

“Sing,” said Ada sullenly.

“Then do that.”

And now the watching girls had what Bobby later admitted was “the surprise of their lives.”

The girl at the piano fingered a chord tentatively, then struck into a popular song, an appealing little melody, the words a lyric set to music by a composer with a spark of genius.

“I picked a rose in my garden fair—­” sang Ada.

She sang without affectation.  Her voice was a charming contralto, evidently partially trained, and promising with coming years to be worth consideration.

“But it withered in a day—­” went on the lovely voice.

The girls were absolutely mute.  When she had finished the song, and she gave it all, they burst into a spontaneous storm of applause.

Ada barely acknowledged the hand-clapping.  Her face had instantly slipped back into the old sullen lines.

“When she can sing like that, shouldn’t you think she would be perfectly happy?” sighed Betty.  “I’d give anything if I had a voice!”

As a matter of fact Betty had a clear little contralto of her own and she sang as naturally as a bird.  But there was no denying that Ada’s voice was exceptional.