“David says in his last letter that he is waiting impatiently for the holidays.  Just think, Grace, won’t that be splendid to be back in dear old Oakdale again?”

“It seems years since I kissed Mother and Father good-bye,” said Grace, rather wistfully.  “How I’d like to be at home for Thanksgiving.”

“Don’t think about it,” advised Miriam.  “I was as blue as indigo last night.  Let’s keep our minds strictly on what we’re going to do with our holiday.  What have you put down?”

“The football game first.  Then I have tickets for a play that the Morton House girls intend to give.  We might go to Vinton’s for supper on Thanksgiving night.  If we have a Thanksgiving dinner here that day it’s safe to say supper won’t amount to much.  I think——­”

Grace did not finish with what she was saying.  A quick step sounded down the hall and an instant later Anne ran into the room waving an open letter in her hand.  “Girls, girls!” she cried, “you never can guess!”

“What is it?  Tell us at once,” commanded Grace, springing from her chair.  “You’ve received good news from some one we know.”

“Yes,” replied Anne happily.  “My letter is from Miss Southard.  She wishes us to spend Thanksgiving with her and her brother in New York City.  Isn’t that glorious, and do you think we’ll be allowed to go?”

“Hurrah!” cried Grace.  “Since we can’t go home, it’s the very nicest sort of plan.  I think we’ll be allowed to go.  We haven’t any conditions to work off, and I haven’t planned to do any extra studying either.  Thank goodness, my allowance had an extra ten dollars attached to it this month.  Mother wrote that she thought I might need the money, and I do.  I couldn’t possibly have stretched my regular allowance over this trip.”

“I have money enough, I think,” said Miriam.  “I am a thrifty soul.  I saved ten dollars out of my last month’s allowance.  It was really extra money that I had asked Mother for.  I intended to buy a sweater and then changed my mind.”

“The expenses of my trip will have to come out of my college money,” confessed Anne, a trifle soberly, “but I’d be willing to spend twice that much to see the Southards.  Mr. Southard is playing ‘Hamlet’ and so we shall have the opportunity of seeing him in what the critics consider his greatest part.”

“Remember, we haven’t asked permission to go, yet,” remarked Grace.

“The registrar couldn’t be so cruel as to refuse us,” said Miriam cheerfully.  “Let’s besiege her fortress in a body.”

“When shall we make our plea?”

“To-morrow morning after chapel,” suggested Anne.  “Then we’ll have more time to plan our trip.”

The registrar’s office was duly besieged the next morning, as agreed, and the three girls hurried off to their classes with beaming faces.  When they returned to Wayne Hall after recitations that afternoon it was to find Elfreda hanging over the railing in the upstairs hall, an unusually solemn expression on her face.