ox, slip in a letter, and then vanish as quickly
as she had come.

Judith could hardly wait to get the letter into her own hands. Yes, it
was the now familiar printed envelope.

"Genevieve Singleton."

What should she do? Whom should she tell? Nancy? Eleanor? Miss Marlowe?
No; Catherine was the one most concerned. Judith fairly ran with the
precious missive to Catherine's room and fortunately found Catherine
there studying. Her story was soon told and Catherine was scarcely less
excited than Judith.

"Judy, you are the brickiest brick, and the trumpest trump! Come here
and let me shake you. Hasn't it been horrid--such a little thing, but
everybody in such a stew," she added in a confidential tone, which was
ample reward to Judith. "And now we can be rid of her, the little
wretch! Three cheers for the first mate of the 'Jolly Susan!'"

The two of them went arm in arm down to the Captain's room. Judith told
her story but so modestly and so simply that Eleanor forgot the
necessity of "keeping a fifth-form new girl in her place."

The six o'clock dressing-bell rang before they could do more than decide
to have a formal prefects' meeting at which they would confront
Genevieve with the letter.

"She'll confess, of course, right away," whispered Catherine scornfully
to Judith as they went down to tea; "she's that sort."

And this proved to be a true prophecy. Confronted by the prefects,
sitting like judges at their study table, Genevieve turned pale and
looked unmistakably guilty, and when Eleanor said in her sternest voice:
"You were seen putting this letter, which you addressed to yourself, in
the letter-box," Genevieve made no denials; she broke down and confessed
to all four letters. Her misery and humiliation were so genuine and so
overwhelming that Eleanor wisely sent her to her room in the care of
Patricia, who could be trusted not to give Genevieve too much sympathy.

Then the prefects faced the difficult question of the culprit's
punishment. Esther wanted a special house meeting called at which
Genevieve and her ways could be denounced; Catherine thought that a
public apology should be made to Sally May, for Genevieve, it seemed,
was responsible for the spreading of the false accusation; Helen
remarked that Genevieve would like nothing better than to be the centre
of such a romantic picture, and she added shrewdly, "Half the girls
would make a martyr of her and think we had been awfully cruel and
un