a,
his voice trembling a little with suppressed emotion of some sort.

The girls started to move out of the enclosure single file, Grace
leading the procession, when a gust of wind blew the robe of the leading
monk apart, disclosing a navy blue serge walking-skirt. Grace's quick
eye caught sight of the skirt at once, and breaking from the line, she
charged straight into the group of black monks, crying:

"Sophomores! Sophomores!"

The other girls ran after her, screaming at the tops of their voices;
and there might have been almost a free fight between the two classes
had not the Black Monks of Asia scattered in every direction, running at
utmost speed.

"Come on back, girls," cried Grace in a disgusted tone.

She had chased a monk half-way across the orchard; then stopped to
wonder what she would do if she caught the tall, black-robed individual
who had indecorously caught up her skirts and was flying well ahead over
the rough ground.

One by one the plebes returned to their meeting place.

"Well, that was a sell!" uttered Nora disgustedly. "How shall we ever
manage to get even with those mean sophomores!"

"If we don't," exclaimed Grace, "we shall never hear the last of it in
Oakdale."

"But who gave us away?" demanded Jessica. "Did anyone drop a hint to the
sophomores of our secret meeting place?"

"I didn't," said one girl after another.

"Perhaps they followed us," suggested Marian Barber.

"No one followed me," asserted Grace. "I was careful to look behind and
see."

"Nor me."

"Nor me," exclaimed several of her classmates.

"No," said Nora. "Somebody must have overheard and given the secret
away."

"Not Mi----" but Grace stopped before she had finished the name.

The girls looked at each other.

Could Miriam Nesbit have been so false to her class?

No one replied, but each made a secret resolution to ferret out Miriam's
suspected treachery if it were the last act of her life.

"Let's start home, now," said Grace. "It's too late to go nutting
anyhow, and these foolish sophomores have spoiled the afternoon, for me
at least. If we don't cook up something to pay them back, the name of
freshman will be disgraced forever more."

However, the afternoon adventures were not at an end.

As the group of girls started toward the road, some distance away,
trying not to look crestfallen, a gruff voice from the far side of the
Omnibus House called:

"Hold up there!"

The girls took no notice, th