The supper ended with a toast to their young hostess, which was drunk standing, and then the guests repaired to the drawing room, where impromptu stunts were in order.  Every one was obliged to do something, if only to make a remark appropriate to the occasion.  Nora sang, Anne recited, Grace and Miriam did a Spanish dance that they had practised during vacation with remarkable spirit and effect.  Jessica was then detailed to play, and under cover of her music, Tom, Reddy, David and Hippy left the room, Tom returning presently to announce solemnly that an original one-act drama, entitled “The Suffragette,” written by Mr. Wingate and presented by a notable cast, would be the next offering.

After a moment’s wait, Hippy, Reddy and David appeared, and were greeted with shouts of laughter.  Reddy minced along in a bonnet and skirt belonging to Mrs. Harlowe, while Hippy wore a long-sleeved gingham pinafore of Grace’s, which lacked considerable of meeting in the back, and was kept on by means of a sash.  After deliberately setting their stage in full view of the audience at one end of the room, the play began, with David as the meek, hen-pecked husband, Hippy as the neglected child, who wept and howled continuously, while Reddy played the unnatural wife and mother, who neglected her family and held woman’s suffrage meetings in the street.

The dialogue was clever, and the action of the sketch so ridiculous that the audience laughed from the first line until the climax, especially when the suffragette was hustled off to jail by Tom Gray, in the role of a policeman, for disturbing the peace, while her husband and child executed a wild dance of joy as she was hauled off the scene, protesting vigorously.

The applause was tremendous and the cast were obliged to bow their thanks several times before it subsided.  Songs, speeches and recitations followed rapidly until everyone had contributed something in the way of a stunt.  Then the guests formed two long lines from the living room straight through the big archway into the drawing room, and soon a Virginia reel was in full swing, led off by Mr. Harlowe and Mrs. Gray, who took her steps as daintily as when she had danced at her first party so many years before.

After the reel, the young folks romped through “Paul Jones,” and then the party broke up, all declaring that never before had they had quite such a good time.

As Grace sleepily prepared for bed, she felt a little thrill of pride at the success of her party, and her only regret was the fact that of all those invited, Eleanor was the only one who had refused to be present.

CHAPTER XIV

ELEANOR FINDS A WAY

Now that Thanksgiving was past, basketball became the topic of the hour.  The juniors had accepted the challenge of the senior class, and had agreed to play them on Saturday, December 12, at two o’clock, in the gymnasium.  Only two weeks remained in which to practise.  Their sorority enthusiasm had so completely run away with them that they had even neglected basketball until now.  Therefore Grace Harlowe lost no time in getting Miss Thompson’s permission to use the gymnasium, and promptly notified her team and the subs. to meet there, in gymnasium suits, prepared to play, that afternoon.