A most trying necessity are
examinations. They come mainly toward the close of the college year, and
a few of our girls are not prepared to pass.

"Last year I felt that some of my freshmen and sophomores could not
possibly comply with the mathematical requirements. When I received from
the printers my copies of the questions to be proposed to the classes I
really felt that a few of my girls were going to have a hard time," and
she smiled again, yet there was still trouble in her eyes.

"I chanced to be in the library when I received the papers. You have not
seen our library yet, have you, Miss Fielding?"

"No, Miss Cullam. You know, Helen and I arrived only this afternoon at
Ardmore."

"That is so. Well, the library is a very beautifully furnished building.
It was a gift from certain alumni. I was alone in the reception-room
when I examined the papers, and being called suddenly to a duty and not
wishing to take the papers with me, I rolled them up and thrust them
into a vase standing upon the table. When I returned in a few minutes,
still hurried by a task before me, I found that I had thrust the papers
so far into the small-mouthed vase that I could not reach them. Quite a
ridiculous situation, was it not?

"But now the plot thickens," went on the teacher, with a sigh. "The
papers were safe enough there, of course. The vase was a very beautiful
and valuable silver one, and had its place of honor on that table. I
could not stop to retrieve the question papers with a pair of tongs--as
I might, had I not been hurried. When I returned armed with the tongs in
the morning----"

"Yes, Miss Cullam?" rejoined Ruth, interestedly, as the teacher paused
in her story.

"The vase--and, of course, the question papers--was gone," said the
lady, in a sepulchral tone.

"Oh!"

"And almost all the girls I had marked for failure in mathematics went
through the examination with colors flying!"

"Oh!" exclaimed Ruth again, and quite blankly.

"Do you see the terrible suspicion that has been eating at my mind ever
since? There happened to be other unfortunate matters connected with the
disappearance of the vase, too. _It_ has never been found. One of the
very freshmen who I feared would fail in the examination left the
college under a cloud."

"Oh, Miss Cullam!" gasped Ruth. "Is she suspected of stealing the
vase--and the examination papers?"

"I scarcely know what to say in answer to that," said Miss Cullam,
gravely. "It s