"I don't know--"

Janet looked for a moment at the sulky-faced Lily Pendleton. Jess
immediately pulled that young girl forward.

"Why, Lil isn't half as bad as she sounds," declared Jess, laughing. "This
is our very particular friend, Janet Steele, Lil. You've got to treat her
nicely. If you don't," she added sharply, "you'll never get a chance to go
camping with us girls again as you did last summer. You and your Hester
Grimes can go off somewhere by yourselves."

Really, Lily Pendleton had improved a good deal since the time Jess
mentioned, and the latter's blunt speech brought her to a better mind at
once.

"Well, of course," she said, offering Janet her hand, "I did not mean it
just that way. You know how cranky Hessie is when she does get mad. But
Laura has suggested a perfectly splendid idea. Miss Steele as a Red Cross
girl and Chet as Uncle Sam will be fine to lead the grand march on skates."

So it was decided, and they hurried Janet down to the girls' boathouse,
which had a warm, cozy clubroom at one end where Mr. Godey, the watchman,
stayed, and where, at this time of year, he was often busy sharpening
skates. Laura found a pair of skates for the Red Cross girl, and for an
hour the latter practiced with the girls of Central High the steps and
figures of the masquerade parade, which Laura and her friends already had
worked out to perfection.

"Don't worry a bit about to-night, Janet," Laura told her, when they all