t an
over-delightful one. I knew all about the feast several days ago, and took
my own way of letting the girls know that I'd found it out. It was no use
to forbid it for that night, for, just as sure as fate, they would have
planned it for another, and devoured a lot of stuff far less wholesome
than the contents of Toinette's box and my tub. As it was, we all had a
good time, and I'll warrant you that the next time the C. C. C.'s meet
I'll get a hint regarding the tub, at any rate."

"Perhaps it will prove so. I trust so, at all events. You are a far wiser
woman than I am."

"Perhaps no wiser, but better able to recall the things which helped to
make my girlhood a sunny one, and school frolics played no small part in
them."

"I can but hope that the girls will refrain from practicing deceit. Of
course, they cannot deceive _me_; no girl has ever yet succeeded in doing
so, although many have tried to. But I can invariably detect the sham, and
meet it successfully."

"I hope you may never find yourself undone," said Miss Preston, with a
laugh. "Girls are pretty quick-witted creatures."

Girls are not blind to their elders' weaknesses and pet delusions, and it
was an understood thing among them all that Mrs. Stone was easily "taken
in," to use their own expression. Consequently, they told her things, and
laid innocent little traps for her to walk into, such as they would never
have thought of doing for a more wide-awake teacher, or, at least, one who
did not make such a strong point of her power of discernment.

It was the very night after the Caps and Capers escapade that the girls
were gathered in the upper hall talking about the previous night's fun.

"It's no use talking; you _can't_ get ahead of Miss Preston," said one of
the older girls. "You may think you have, and feel aglow clear down to the
cockles of your heart, then--whew! in she walks upon you as cool as--"

"Ice cream!" burst in another girl. "To my dying day, girls, I shall never
forget that red ghost."

"How did she ever find it out, I'd like to know," asked Toinette. "Not a
soul said a word, and my box didn't come till the very last minute. I
hardly had time to let the girls know, and how Miss Preston ever got her
tub of cream in time is more than I can puzzle out. Maybe Mrs. Stores had
it on hand."

"Mrs. Stores! Yes, I guess so," cried the girls, scornfully. "You don't
for one moment suppose that _she_ would let us have a whole tub of ice
cre