Mary, who had been sitting on one of the wide window-seats in the recitation-room, jumped to her feet at this, with a little scream of: "Oh, Anna, you've hit it. I do believe it _is_ the clew. Why _didn't_ I think of April-fool's day,--that it would be just the opportunity Nelly Ryder would take advantage of to play a trick, because she could throw it off from herself as a mere April joke, if her hand was found out in it. Yes, yes, she has planned to drag Angela into some performance or other on the birthday that will make her ridiculous and offensive to Marian,--sending her on some fool's errand to Marian, perhaps the night of the party, as somebody sent poor little Tilly Drake last year with a silly message to Clara Harrington that made Clara furious, and mortified Tilly dreadfully."

"Oh, well, Angela wouldn't be taken in like that; she's brighter than Tilly."

"Angela is just the one to be taken in. She's one of the brightest persons I ever saw about books and things of that kind, but she is very innocent and unsuspecting. Anna, I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to see Marian this noon, and I'm going to tell her what I suspect."

"No, I wouldn't do that; it wouldn't be fair, for it's only our suspicion, and we _may_ be on the wrong track altogether."

"But what am I to do? Sit still and let some horrid thing perhaps go on that I might stop?"

"I'll tell you what you might do. You might say to Marian that you had got an idea that somebody was going to play a trick on her birthday,--upon her and some unsuspecting person; that you didn't know _what_ the trick was to be, and you might be all wrong in your suspicion that there was to be one, but you thought that you ought to put her on her guard. You might say this to her without mentioning a name."

"Oh, Anna, Anna, what a cautious little thing you are with your 'mays'

and your 'mights;' but you are right, you are right, and I'll go to Marian this noon, and say just what you've told me to say, and not a word more."

CHAPTER II.

Mary thought it would be a very easy matter to say to Marian what Anna had suggested, but it wasn't so easy as she thought. Marian was a year older than herself, and that meant a good deal to a girl of fifteen,--a year older and more than a year beyond her, with the experience of Washington city life and schools during the winter months. In fact, to Mary, who had not seen her for the past few months, she appeared so experienced and grown-up, as she came into the room to meet her, that that young person felt all at once very young and awkward, and as a consequence made such a boggle of what she had to say, that Marian, entirely misunderstanding, exclaimed in amazement,--

"You want me to get up an April joke on my birthday, Mary? I couldn't think of such a thing; I hate April jokes."

"No, no, you misunderstand," burst forth Mary; and then, forgetting all her awkwardness, she made her little statement over again, and this time succinctly and clearly. And now it was _her_ turn to be amazed; for before she had got entirely to the end of her statement, Marian starting up pulled a note from her pocket and cried, "Read this, Mary! read this!"

It was Angela's cordial note of acceptance.

"And she had no invitation from _me_. I never invited her, I scarcely knew her," went on Marian.

"She had no invitation from _you_, but she thought she had. It isn't Angela who is playing a trick upon _you_. Somebody has played a trick upon _her_,--has written in your name. Oh, don't you see? _She_ is the innocent person I meant."

"But who--who is the guilty one,--the one who has _dared_ to do this?"

cried Marian.

"I can't tell you yet whom I think it is, because I haven't any proof, and it wouldn't be fair to call names unless I had sure proof."

"Well, look here. All my notes were sealed with my monogram seal, but I used a variety of colored wax. Everybody is interested in comparing seals now, and so can't you make an excuse to Angela that you want to compare the seals in the different colors, and borrow her note of invitation, and then bring it to me? If I could see that note, I might know the handwriting, and then I'd know who played this shabby, cruel trick. And I ought to know, that I mayn't suspect an innocent person."

"But the note that Angela received may not be sealed with wax."

"Oh, yes, it will. Whoever sent that note had seen mine, I am certain, and of course would use wax, as I did. Now, won't you do this little service for me, Mary?" urged Marian, entreatingly.

Mary laughed. "Yes, I'll do it," she answered, "though I'm not very clever at playing theatre. I've too much Quaker blood in me for that; but it's a good cause, and I'll do the best I can, and I'll do it now, for Angela's sure to be at home now;" and suiting her action to her word, Mary started off then and there upon her errand.

And so surely and swiftly did she do her best on this errand that Marian gave a little scream of surprise as she saw her coming back, and, "You've not got it already?" she cried, running to meet her.

"Yes, here it is. Angela gave it to me at once."

"Just the size of _my_ paper, and the wax--you see I was right. There _is_ wax, and a seal-stamp that looks like _my_ stamp, but isn't,"

exclaimed Marian. "Now for the handwriting!" One glance at the address on the envelope; then, pulling out the note, she bent breathlessly over it for a moment. In another moment she was calling out triumphantly: "I know it! I know it! She tried to imitate mine, but I know these M's and r's and A's. They're Nelly Ryder's! they're Nelly Ryder's! Look here;"

and running to her desk, the excited girl produced another note, and placed it beside the one that Angela had received. It was Nelly Ryder's acceptance of her invitation; and Mary, looking at the peculiar M's and r's and A's saw as clearly as Marian herself the proof of the same hand in each note.

"And I should know her 'hand' anywhere, for I've had hundreds of notes from her, first and last," Marian went on. "But to think of her playing such a trick as this! I never had any admiration for her, or her cousin either; but I _didn't_ think either one of them could do such a mischievous, vulgar thing. But _you_ did, Mary, for this is the girl you suspected."

"Yes, because I had known more of her than you had,--going to school with her every day;" and then Mary told what she had known, and what she had seen herself, winding up with, "But I didn't like to tell you all this before I had certain proof, for I wanted to be fair, you know."

"And you _have_ been fair, more than fair; and now--"

"Well, go on, what do you stop for--now what?"

"Wait and see;" and Marian nodded her head, and compressed her lips into a firm, resolute line.

"Oh, Marian, are you going to punish Nelly?" cried Mary, a little alarmed at these indications.

Marian nodded again.

"Yes, I'm going to punish her."

"Oh, how, when, where?"

"When? On Thursday night. Where? At the birthday party. How? Wait and see."

CHAPTER III.

It was the evening of the first of April,--a beautiful, still, starry evening, with all the chill and frost of early spring blown out of it by the friendly winds of March, and all the lovely promises of summer buddings and flowerings wafting into it from waiting May and June.

A "just perfect evening," said more than one girl delightedly, as she set out arrayed in all her furbelows for the birthday party. A "just perfect evening." And no one said this more emphatically, and felt it more emphatically, than Mary Marcy and Angela Jocelyn,--Mary in her pretty and becoming if rather plain white gown of China silk, and Angela in her old white cambric that had been 'done over' for the hundredth time, perhaps, and was neither pretty nor becoming, with its skimp skirt and sleeves and shrunken waist. But a new gown had been out of the question just then with the Jocelyns, and Angela had to make the best of the old one; and it did not seem at all hard to make a very good 'best'

of it, when she stood in her own little bedroom, with Martha tying the well-worn blue sash around the shrunken waist, and her mother looking on and saying, "It really looks very nice, and that sash _does_ wash so well."

But when she went up into the great brilliantly lighted bedchamber at the Selwyns', and saw Mary Marcy in her perfectly fitting gown drawing on her delicate gloves, and talking with several young ladies beautifully dressed in fresh muslin and silk, the skimp skirt and sleeves, the shrunken waist and washed sash, seemed all at once very mean and shabby to Angela. They seemed still meaner and shabbier when two other girls appeared in yet prettier costumes of fresh daintiness; and when these two dropped their little hooded shoulder-wraps of silk and lace, and she saw that they were the two Ryder cousins, poor Angela suddenly began to feel a strange sense of awkwardness and unfitness.

This feeling increased as she noticed the unmistakable start that the cousins gave as they caught sight of her, and heard Nelly's astonished exclamation, "What! _you_ here?"

It was a bitter moment; but a bitterer was yet to come, when Lizzy Ryder, with that innocent little way of hers, said,--

"Oh, if you've come to help take our things off, _do_ help me with this scarf, Angela!"

If Angela could but have known then and there that this was only a petty stab from one petty jealous girl! But she did not know. She heard the words, apparently so innocently spoken, and said to herself, "They think I am here as a servant, not as a guest!" and with a miserable confused feeling that everything was wrong, from her acceptance of the invitation to her shabby gown, she started back with all her confusion merging into one thought to get away out of the sight of these well-dressed happy girls. But as she started back, Mary Marcy, who had heard Lizzy Ryder's speech, started forward and called out: "Oh, Angela, how do you do? I didn't see you when you came in. I--I've been expecting to see you, though; and now shall we go down together?"

Angela couldn't speak. She could only give a little nod of a.s.sent, and yield herself to kind Mary's guidance, with a deep breath of relief. It was only a partial relief, however. She had yet to go down into the brilliant parlor with its crowd of Selwyn cousins, yet to face, in that old shrunken gown with its washed sash, all those critical eyes. Oh, what if all those eyes should look at her with a stare of astonishment, such as Lizzy and Nelly Ryder had bestowed upon her? What if Marian herself should give a glance of surprise at the old shabby gown? These were some of the troubled questions that whirled through Angela's head as she went down the stairs with Mary Marcy. And down behind them, following closely, though Angela did not know it, came the two Ryder girls, full of eager curiosity, for they were both of them now quite certain that Marian had received no note of any sort from Angela. "She didn't know enough to write an acceptance. How should she? I don't suppose she's ever had an invitation to a party in her life," whispered Nelly to her cousin in the first shock of surprise at seeing Angela in the dressing-room.

"No, of course not," whispered back Lizzy; and so, confident and secure in this belief, and in the antic.i.p.ation of "fun," as they called the displeased astonishment they expected to see Marian express at the sight of her uninvited guest, and the guest's mortification thereat, the conspirators stepped softly along down the stairs and across the great hall into the beautiful brilliant parlor.

[Ill.u.s.tration: As the fresh arrivals appeared]