"How fabulous?" Shelley asked.

"Fabulous in direct ratio to the horribleness of the reunion."

"It won't be horrible," Shelley said. "In fact, it might be kind of fun."

"Wanna bet? So, what's this club called?"

Shelley squirmed. "You don't want to know."

"More horrible confessions? Come on. Devastate me!"

Shelley mumbled into her coffee cup. "The Ewe Lambs."

"Ewe Lambs?" Jane shrieked with delight.

"It wasn't our fault! The football team was the Rams and the club was formed ten years before I was even in high school."

"And I'll bet you had cute stuff like, 'Do ewe solemnly swear to uphold and protect the woolly principles…' " Jane was laughing too hard to finish.

Shelley drew herself up. "Nice women don't snort like that when they're talking, Jane."

"You'll have to warn Edgar off serving mutton," Jane said, and went off into another laughing fit. "I wonder if any of your club members are 'on the lamb.'"

Shelley looked to heaven for guidance.

On Tuesday afternoon the week the reunion was to start, Jane went to the Francisco mansion with Shelley to meet Edgar North and familiarize herself with the layout of the house and her responsibilities. '

The house had a definitely Gothic look. The three-acre lot was surrounded by a tall filigree iron fence, freshly painted with glossy black paint. "It looks like'an English mental institution from the turn of the century," Jane commented to Shelley as they passed through the gates. The mansion was truly a mansion, with turrets, towers, and misguided bits of iron railings around the roof edges and dormers. Tall pines and oaks, showing scars of recent cosmetic trimming, still darkened the overall gloomy aspect, which was not helped by the fact that a dank fall drizzle was falling. j J