d a very convenient arrangement too," said Mr.
Bond, leading the way into an artificial cave close at hand.

Here to the girls' amazement was a perfectly modern and up-to-date
"ascenseur," nicely upholstered and lighted by electricity. Mr. Bond
ushered his visitors inside, closed the door, pressed a button, and
immediately they shot aloft, landing ultimately in a kiosk in Count
Sutri's garden at the top of the cliff. Feeling as if a magician had
used occult means to transport them back to safety, the girls gazed
round highly delighted to find themselves out of the cove. Their host,
to whom they hastily confided some details of how they had penetrated
into his premises, fetched a ladder, and by its aid they mounted to the
roof of the shed, and skipped over the wall on to the top of their own
wood-hut.

"You won't tell Miss Rodgers?" begged Peachy, waving a good-by to their
rescuer after they had all protested their gratitude.

"I guess I know how to keep a secret," he laughed. "I won't betray you.
Hope you'll be in time. There goes your school bell. You've run it fine
but I believe you'll just do it if you hustle up."

Three breathless girls, with minds much too agitated to apply
themselves properly to French translation, slipped into the Villa
Camellia at the eleventh hour, and answered "present" as their names
were read on the roll-call. Peachy's disheveled hair drew down a rebuke
from Miss Bickford, but this was such a very minor evil that she took it
meekly, smoothed the offending elf-locks with her fingers, and composed
her dimples to an expression of docile humility.

"We got out of that very well," she purred in private afterwards.

"Thanks to Mr. Bond and the lift," agreed Irene.

"I guess I'm not going to try anything so risky again," declared Delia.
"It was the fix of my life. I'll be down with nervous prostration
to-morrow. Shouldn't wonder if I raise a temperature to-night. Peachy
Proctor, you may coax and tease as you like, but nothing you say will
ever induce me to climb that wall and go into Count Sutri's garden
again. It's not worth the thrills. Sorry to be a crab, but I mean it."

CHAPTER XIV

The Villa Bleue

Delia's good resolution remained only half fulfilled, for after all she
visited Count Sutri's cove again. This time, however, it was in a
perfectly orthodox fashion. Mr. and Mrs. Bond, meeting Miss Morley at
the house of an American resident in Fossato, invited the whole school