“I am—­yes.”  There was hesitation in the tones.

“Why, what is the matter?” asked Grace, quickly.  “Are you ill, Amy?” for the girl looked pale, and there were dark circles under her eyes.

“No, I’m all right.  But papa and mamma don’t seem to want me to go—­at least they say they rather I would not just at present.”

“The idea!”

“After we have it almost all arranged!”

“Why not?”

These comments and the question were fairly shot at Amy.

“I—­I don’t know,” she faltered.  “At first they did not seem to mind—­but last night—­oh, I dare say it will, be all right, girls.  Don’t mind me,” and Amy tried to smile, though it could easily be seen that it cost her an effort.

She did not want to tell that she had overheard her parents discussing something the night before that troubled her—­a topic that had been hushed when she unexpectedly came into the room.  And that it had to do with the proposed little trip Amy was sure.  Yet Mr. and Mrs. Stonington had at first shown much interest in it, and had written to various relatives asking them to entertain the girls.

“Stuck up things!” murmured Alice Jallow, toward the close of the noon recess, when the four chums had kept to one corner of the school court, eating their lunches, and never joining in the activities, or talk, of the other pupils.

“I wonder what they can be planning?” murmured Alice.  “If they’re getting up a new society, we’ll do the same, and we won’t ask them to join.”

“Indeed we won’t,” agreed her chum.  “That Betty Nelson thinks she can run the school.  I’ll show her that she can’t!”

“And if they knew what I know about Amy Stonington I don’t believe they’d be so thick with her.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s a secret.”

“Oh, tell me, Alice,” pleaded Kittie.  “You know I won’t ever tell—­honest!”

“Promise?”

“Promise!”

“Well then—­oh, come over here.  There’s that horrid Sadie Jones trying to hear what we’re saying,” and the two girls, arm in arm, strolled off to a distant part of the court.

The afternoon session wore on.  The day grew warmer, the sky became overcast, and there was the dull muttering of distant thunder.  There seemed a tension in the air—­as if something was going to snap.  Doubtless you have often felt it—­a sensation as though pins and needles were pricking you all over.  As though you wanted to scream—­to cry out—­against an uncertain sensation that gripped you.

In the various classrooms the droning voices were heard—­of the pupils in recitations, or of the teachers as they patiently explained some point.

The thunder rumbled nearer and nearer.  Now and then a vivid flash of lightning split the sombre clouds.  At such times the nervous girls would jump in their seats, and there would follow hysterical, though quickly subdued, bursts of laughter from their more stolid mates, or the boys.