CHAPTER TEN: THE SCREENED WINDOW

The telephone rang insistently, and Phyllis, stretched at ease on the sofa in the snuggery, looked appealingly at Janet.

"Darling twin of my heart, if you love me go and answer that. I'm so comfy," she pleaded.

Janet got up slowly from her big chair and looked reproachfully at her sister.

"Lazy, you're not a bit more comfy than I am, but I will go just to prove that I have the sweeter disposition."

"Bless you, I never doubted it," Phyllis called after her as she ran down the steps. Then she snuggled deeper into the cushions that were piled high about her, selected a large chocolate from the box beside her and closed her eyes.

It was the day before Muriel's party, and it was snowing hard. The girls had returned wet and cold from school and decided upon spending the rest of the day indoors. Janet, as usual, had found a book to read, but Phyllis, after playing with Galahad and Born, had insisted upon interrupting, until in sheer desperation she had given it up and they had discussed the coming masquerade.

"It was Sally," Janet announced, returning from the 'phone.

"And what did she want?" Phyllis inquired. "You know, Jan, we were awfully silly not to bring Sally home with us."

"I won't tell you what she said unless you get up and hand me those chocolates," Janet replied as she settled herself once more in the big tufted chair.

Phyllis looked at the box of candy and then at the distance between it and Janet. It was too far to reach.

"Oh, Jan, I'm so tired," she protested.

"All right." Janet opened her book and began to read.

"Was it anything important?" Phyllis inquired, with pretended indifference.

"Fearfully, " -- Janet did not look up from her book as she replied.
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Phyllis appeared to consider the matter.

"Tell me what kind you want and I'll throw it to you, " she offered by way of compromise.

"Oh, well, if I must, I must!" Curiosity won and Phyllis got up slowly, the candy box in her hand. "Only never again allude to dispositions," she finished as she gave it to Janet.

"Thank you, dear," Janet said sweetly as she rooted in the bottom of the box for a nut.

"Well?" Phyllis demanded, "what did Sally want?"

Janet finished her candy and selected another before she answered.

"Sally called up to tell me that our costumes would be ready to try on at four o'clock to-day and that she would call for us in Daphne's car."

"Oh, how nice Taffy can be when she wants to." Phyllis was now wide awake. "Did Sally say when the not-to-be-hurried Miss Pringle intended
to finish our things?"

" To-morrow, not later than twelve o'clock."

"Do you think she really will have them done then?"

"I should hope so; she's had them for ages," Janet replied. "Now, Phil, do keep still and let me read in peace until the girls come, I have a corking story and I'm just in the middle of the most thrilling part." 

"What is it?" Phyllis inquired.

"'The White Company,' by Conan Doyle," Janet replied.

"Oh, I've read that and it is a thriller. I won't bother you any more." She turned her attentions to the candy box, and then because she was now too wide awake to dream lazily on the lounge again she went over to the window and looked out.

The snow had stopped and a cold sun was struggling through a mass of heavy clouds. She gazed below her idly. A man was on the roof of the house across the yard. The roof covered an extension that was only one story high but ran out from the house almost to the end of the yard, and brought it quite near to the roof of the kitchen of Miss Carter's house.

Phyllis watched the man with lazy interest. He was the caretaker, she knew, for the family was down South. He seemed to be fitting a heavy wire screen into one of the smaller windows immediately above the extension.

"Now, I wonder what he's doing that for? " she said aloud to herself. "Looks as though they were fixing that room for a baby." 

Miss Carter came in at this minute and put an end to her curiosity.

"Oh, Auntie Mogs, Sally just called up to say that she and Daphne would come by for us in Daphne's car, and we could all go to Miss Pringle's and try on our costumes!" she exclaimed.

"Why, how very nice of Daphne," -- Miss Carter smiled. "I was worrying about your having to go out on this miserable day."

Phyllis laughed and put her arm around her aunt.

"You see there are no two ways about it!" she cried. " We should have a car of our own and then you would never have to worry about our feet."

"Oh, Phyllis, you're a great one," -- her aunt laughed, "Well, I'm afraid I must keep on worrying for we certainly can't have a car."

"Glad of it." Janet, for all her apparent interest for her book, had been listening with one ear to the conversation.

"Why, Jan," -- Phyllis looked at her in amazement -- "wouldn't you like a car?"

"No, I hate them; silly smelly things -- give me a horse every time."

"Old fashioned," scoffed Phyllis. "I'll take a high-powered racer every time."

Miss Carter listened and smiled her amusement.

"And you will both have to take a street car," -- she laughed. "Poor abused children! Hurry along with you, and get ready or you will keep Daphne waiting."

"There they are, now!" Phyllis exclaimed, as the front door bell pealed merrily. "That's Sally's ring; I know it."

Janet threw down her book, and they went to their rooms in search of hats.
A few minutes later they were all in the comfortable limousine, speeding along uptown.

"It was awfully nice of you to stop for us Taffy," Phyllis said as soon as the greetings were over. "This is certainly a whole lot better than walking."

"Yes, isn't it?" Daphne agreed. "I was tickled when mother said I could have it. It isn't often that I can, you know."

Sally had been looking out of the window, and suddenly she leaned forward and knocked on the glass and waved.

"Look!" she exclaimed. "There's little Donald; isn't he the cutest youngster?"
Phyllis waved too, then she looked puzzled.

"Funny," she said under her breath.

"What is?" Janet demanded.

"Oh, nothing."

Daphne looked back at Donald through the window above her head.

"Isn't that Donald Keith?" she asked, and Phyllis nodded.

"It is Donald Francis MacFarlan Keith, " -- she laughed, "or so he told me with much pardonable pride. He was most sympathetic when I had to confess to only two names."

"His father's a friend of my uncle's," Daphne explained. "It's little Don's cousin, Chuck Vincent, that Muriel walks home with every day. I've played tennis with him, and he Is really rather fun for a boy, " she drawled.

"For a boy?" laughed Janet. "I think boys are a whole lot more fun than girls." 

"I don't," Daphne replied airily. "I think they are all very stuck up. Chuck is; you'll see that to-morrow night."

"Wonder if Miss Pringle will really have our things ready for us," Sally said. "She is always so uncertain. If she doesn't, I think I will die of disappointment."

"You tell her she has to, Daphne," Janet suggested. "You can always put on such airs, and they never fail to impress."

"Do my best." Daphne accepted Janet's compliment calmly; she knew it was true. Her drawl did seem to impress people, though she could never imagine why.

The car stopped before a dilapidated, brownstone house, and the girls got out and hurried up the worn steps. Miss Pringle herself let them in. She was a tall, angular woman, with wisps of untidy hair blowing about her face, and a mouth out of which she could always produce a pin at a moment's notice.

"Oh, young ladies," she said distractedly. "Why have you come?"

"We want to try on our dominoes," Sally said, rather taken aback.

"Dominoes? Oh, yes, yes, to be sure. Stop this way."

She led them into a large room, filled with the smell of the kerosene stove and strewn with patterns and pieces of silks. It was a cluttered-up place.

"Here they are! " Phyllis exclaimed, going over to the table and picking up a dress. "Aren't they ducks?"

"Don't touch, please," Miss Pringle said nervously; "they're only pinned."

She picked up one of the costumes and beckoned to Sally.

"This is yours, Miss Ladd. Slip it over your head."

The others crowded around and admired.

"Oh, Sally, it's a love!" Phyllis enthused.

Miss Pringle shook her head and sighed.

"I can't understand why you are having them all alike," she complained. "Now, if you had only consulted me I could have designed such a pretty one for each of you; but, no, you must have your own way."

"But we want them alike for a special reason, Sally explained. "It's to be a regular masquerade, you know, and we thought that four costumes just alike would confuse people," -- she stopped, discouraged by the lack of Miss Pringle's attention.

The costume was a domino made of strips of colored silks with a big hood lined with pale yellow. Each stripe ended in a point, and a tiny bell hung from each one.

The girls tried them on, one at a time, and Miss Pringle pinned and basted and lengthened and shortened. She had made costumes all her life and no play at Miss Harding's seemed complete until she had been consulted.

"What are the other girls going to wear?" Daphne asked indifferently.

"Miss Grey will have a dear little shepherdess dress, and those two that are always together, I've mislaid their names in my mind -- "

Sally laughed and Phyllis said quickly,

"Rosamond Dodd and Eleanor Schuyler."

"Yes, those are the ones. Well, they are going as Jack and Jill, and, oh, dearie me, I forgot. I know I've, done my best for them all, and I must say they had more faith in my judgment than you young ladies had." An audible sniff ended the sentence.

"Oh, now, Miss Pringle," Sally protested, "we have unlimited faith in you. Didn't I prove it last year by letting you make a fairy out of me when I wanted to be a witch? This is a special joke we are having, that's why we want to be all alike."

"A very poor one, if you ask me,"-another sniff. "I can understand the Miss Pages, being as how they are twins, but -- "

The girls were ready to leave, and Daphne interrupted her politely, but in her most approved drawl:

"We must all have our dominoes before noon, you know," she said. "As we are all going to dress at one house and go together, please be sure they are delivered on time."

"Certainly, Miss Hillis. I think I can be depended upon to keep my promises." Miss Pringle spoke huffily, but Daphne only smiled her slowest smile and nodded graciously as they went down the steps.

Phyllis hesitated before she entered the waiting car. A man whom she recognized as the caretaker of the house just back of theirs ran up the steps and disappeared in the wake of Miss Pringle's trailing wrapper.

"Wonder how he got here so quickly,"  Phyllis said to herself, and then dismissed the subject, at an impatient "hurry up" from Sally.

Continue to chapter 11