"There, now you see," cried Polly, unable to keep still, while her face
grew red too. "O dear! what shall we do?"

"You are--you are," cried Joel, capering up and down the platform, his
black eyes shining with delight. "Now I know for certain, and it's at
our house, too, for you asked Polly if you might bring some other girl,
Elsie somebody or other, so! Oh! I'll soon know."

"Joel," exclaimed Jasper suddenly, clapping him on the shoulder, "I'm
going round to the gymnasium; want to go with me?"

Joel stopped his capering at once, this new idea thrusting out the old
one.

"Don't I, though!" he cried, with a nod at Polly and her friends. "But
I'll find out when I do get home," the nod declared plainly.

But Jasper also nodded. He said, "He won't get home till late; depend on
me." And then "Come on, Joe," he cried; "I'm going to walk," and they
were off.

Alexia pinched Polly's gray woolen jacket sleeve convulsively. "What an
escape," she breathed.

"Here comes Percy," cried Polly nervously, and she broke away from her
and the other girls, and ran to meet him, and the two boys following.

"Where's Jasper?" asked Percy, rendered quite important in air and step,
from his encounter with the baggage officials.