“Marg, where’s the doll?  Your mother tipped us off,” was Elinor’s greeting.

“Where’s the eats?” was Flossie Dickerson’s greeting.  She was a bright-eyed girl, with freckles on her smiling face, and the expression of a daring, vivacious and happy spirit—­and acknowledged to be the best dancer and most popular girl in Middleville.  Her dress, while not to be compared with her friends’ costumes in costliness, yet was extreme in the prevailing style.

“Glad to see you, old dear,” was dark-eyed, dark-haired Dorothy Dalrymple’s greeting.  Her rich color bore no hint of the artificial.  She sank down on her knees beside Margaret.

The other girls draped themselves comfortably round the room; and Flossie with a ‘Yum Yum’ began to dig into a box of candy on Margaret’s couch.  They all talked at once.  “Hear the latest, Marg?”

“Look at Helen’s spiffy suit!”

“Oh, money, money, what it will buy!”

“Money’ll never buy me, I’ll say.”

“Marg, who’s been fermentin’ round lately?  Girls, get wise to the flowers.”

“Hot dog!  See Marg blush!  That comes from being so pale.  What are rouge and lip-stick and powder for but to hide truth from our masculine pursuers?”

“Floss, you haven’t blushed for a million years.”

It was Dorothy Dalrymple who silenced the idle badinage.

“Marg, you rummaging in the past?” she cried.

“Yes, and I love it,” replied Margaret.  “I haven’t looked over this stuff for years.  Just to remember the things I did!...  Here, Dal, is a picture you once drew of our old teacher, Miss Hill.”

Dorothy, whom the girls nicknamed “Dal,” gazed at the drawing with amaze and regret.

“She was a terror,” continued Margaret.  “But Dal, you never had any reason to draw such a horrible picture of her.  You were her pet.”

“I wasn’t,” declared Dorothy.

“Maybe you never knew Miss Hill adored you, Dal,” interposed Elinor.  “She was always holding you up as a paragon.  Not in your lessons—­for you were a bonehead—­but for deportment you were the class!”

“Dal, you were too good for this earth then, let alone these days,” said Margaret.

“Miss Hill,” mused Elinor, gazing at the caricature.  “That’s not a bad drawing.  I remember Miss Hill never had any use for me.  Small wonder.  She was an honest-to-God teacher.  I think she wanted us to be good....  Wonder how she got along with the kids that came after us.”

“I saw Amanda Hill the other day,” spoke up Flossie.  “She looked worn out.  She was nice to me.  I’ll bet my shirt she’d like to have us back, bad as we were....  These kids of to-day!  My Gawd! they’re the limit.  They paralyze me.  I thought I was pretty fast.  But compared to these youngsters I’m tied to a post.  My kid sister Joyce—­Rose Clymer—­Bessy Bell!...  Some kids, believe me.  And take it from me, girls, these dimple-kneed chickens are vamping the older boys.”