The days are slipping by too fast for me to waste any time that way." The house was quiet when Mary closed her journal.

Joyce was still asleep on the bed, and through the open door she could see Betty, tilted back in a big chair, nodding over a magazine.

She concluded it would be a good time to dash off a letter to Holland, but with a foresight which prompted her to be ready for any occasion, she decided to dress first for the evening.

Tiptoeing around the room, she brushed her hair in the new way Mom Beck had taught her, and, taking out her prettiest white dress, proceeded to array herself in honor of the best man's coming.
Then she rummaged in the tray of her trunk till she found her pink coral necklace and fan-chain, and, with a sigh of satisfaction that she was ready for any emergency, seated herself at her letter-writing.
She had written only a page, however, when the clock on the stairs chimed four.

The deep tones echoing through the hall sent Lloyd bouncing up from her couch, her hair falling over her shoulders and her long kimono tripping her at every step, as she ran into Joyce's room.
"What are we going to do ?" she cried in dismay.