"Are we debarred? Too old and cranky or something like that?" teased
Jane. Her hair was bursting from her cap like an over-ripe thistle,
and her cheeks were velvety in a rich glow of early winter tints.
She hardly looked too old even for skipping rope just then.
"Of course everyone may come who wants to," Inez condescended, "but juniors usually don't enjoy henning (shopping)."
"I adore it," insisted Jane. "Do let us tag on and we'll buy the peanuts. But this really was to be an important afternoon at the baskets. However do you children expect to maintain the honor of Wellington if you do not keep fit? Now when I was center—"
"Hear! Hear! Hear!" interrupted Mabel. "Remember that famous song,
'I know a girl and her name was Jane'!"
"A rebold ribald rowdy!" shouted a chorus.
But Jane was escaping—running down the walk with hands clapped over her ears to shut out the memories of her earlier years when that refrain was quite too popular to be enjoyable.
Outside the big gate an auto horn honked, and the students drew back to give the big car approaching full sweep of the country roadway. Then another horn sounded, and from the opposite direction a smart little run-about was seen cutting in at high speed. Both drivers saw their danger and both jammed brakes. The big car rolled to the gutter while the runabout picked up speed and shot by safely. This brought the touring car to the curb where the Wellingtons stood watching, and a glance at the seats showed these occupants:
Dol Vin driving, Shirley Duncan at her side, and a rather elderly country couple spread over the big back seat.
"Shirley's folks!" whispered Inez. "We heard they were in town seeing the sights, and hoped we would run across them." This was evidently the "something" hinted at in the soph's outline of the "henning" party.
Dolorez Vincez was too clever to show embarrassment, and Shirley Duncan was too cruel to hide it. She plainly was urging the driver on.