S. P. ideas were growing. Jean and Nan promised to see Miss Haynes on Monday; and then the planning was directed to immediate affairs with the arranging and furnishing of the club room, the time of meetings, whether they should have refreshments or not, and kindred matters to be decided. Jean was to be spared some things, for it would not be fair, the girls said, for her to be at all the trouble, or expense, if there were any, about the room. It was enough for her to offer the room. But Jean informed them that the furniture was there and the room doing no one any good. “Mother is having the attic all cleaned for us to-day,” she announced, “and this morning we decided that it was foolish to keep a lot of things that might do somebody some good. So you ought to see the clearance! But all the furniture that can be fixed for us, and some trunks of things that will be lovely for us to dress up in will still be there.”
“I adore an attic!” sighed Leigh. Then a neat maid came to the door to announce that tea was ready, and the girls of the S. P. Club had their first dainty meal together in their official relation.
Phoebe was delighted when Jean told her how glad she was that Leigh was in the club. “Do you know,” said Jean, “if it had not been that you have liked her so much, I would not have called her that afternoon. They seemed like such reserved people and have so much money and travel so much, or I suppose they do, that I imagined Mrs. Dudley would not care for us girls, and Leigh never seemed to. But I understand now.”
“She didn’t want to show how lonesome she was,” said Phoebe, “and then she hasn’t been around much with other girls anyway. She was sick and tutored, at home or wherever they were.”
The whole seven, Leigh included, were going to Jean’s after their good supper at Leigh’s. The purpose was to inspect the attic once more.
“You feel better, Jean, don’t you, to have some sort of a real name picked out, even if it may be only temporary?”
“Yes, Phoebe, after what I said to Billy. Some day perhaps I’ll tell him all about it.”
“None of the rest of us will, and it must be understood that if we take in other girls they are never to know how this started. We’ll probably forget it anyway. It isn’t important to the S. P.’s.”