"Somebody else will have to think up something better next time," she whispered out of the corner of her mouth a few minutes later as her gaspings ceased. "It isn't _natural_ to have any more of us affected that way."
"Poor girls," murmured Mrs. Forest, "they must have gotten overheated getting the dinner and this room is cooler. Well, as I was about to say--"
At this point Florence Thomas quietly fainted dead away and toppled into a little chiffon heap on the hearth rug.
A slight titter of delight rippled through the room, incongruously enough, and Mrs. Forest glared at the offenders.
"Why, how heartless of you," she said, bending with difficulty and lifting her pupil's limp head and patting her perfectly normally rosy face. "Have you some whisky, Mr. Huntington? In an emergency of this kind I think it is perhaps permissible to give it--"
But before Mr. Huntington returned, Florence was beginning to sigh her way back to consciousness and her eyes fluttered open and she shook her head when the spoon with the whisky was offered.
"Why--why--where am I--did I--faint or something?" she murmured innocently, and dangerous as they knew their mirth to be, this was too much for the girls and they shouted out their appreciation in laughter that was beyond their efforts to control.
Of course Mrs. Forest must have understood, but someway they didn't care. She would have to be "sport enough to stand for it," in their own way of putting it. And she seemed to be, for she did not pursue the subject of the contribution further in their hearing, and how could they know that she tagged Mr. Huntington into the library while they were all clearing off the dishes and put the whole proposition to him there in what Peggy would have called her graftiest way?
When the girls themselves came into the library for the great game of bean auction which was always one of the merriest features of an Andrews spread, Mrs. Forest was looking quite unconscious of any rude intentions and Mr. Huntington's expression was one of whole-hearted joy and happiness, so they could not even guess what had transpired.
On the library table was piled a fascinating collection of little packages, wrapped in varicolored paper, some daintily tied with ribbon, others knotted about by the coarsest twine. These were of all shapes and some looked soft and others hard. "Nothing over ten beans," was the inscription placarded above them.