to so many times
that you've lost count. Keep her snubbed all the time. I'll be elephant
trainer and start Irene running; she'll be a graceful gazelle by the
time I finish."

They parted on their several missions. St. Ursula's peace had ended. She
was in the throes of reform.

* * * * *

On Friday evening two weeks later, an unofficial faculty meeting was
convened in the Dowager's study. "Lights-out" had rung five minutes
before, and three harried teachers, relieved of duty for nine blessed
hours while their little charges slept, were discussing their troubles
with their chief.

"But just what have they done?" inquired Mrs. Trent, in tones of
judicial calm, as she vainly tried to stop the flood of interjections.

"It is difficult to put one's finger on the precise facts," Miss
Wadsworth quavered. "They have not broken any rules so far as I can
discover, but they have--er--created an atmosphere--"

"Every girl in my corridor," said Miss Lord, with compressed lips, "has
come to me separately, and begged to have Patty moved back to the West
Wing with Constance and Priscilla."

"Patty! _Mon Dieu!_" Mademoiselle rolled a pair of speaking eyes to
heaven. "The things that child thinks of! She is one little imp."

"You remember," the Dowager addressed Miss Lord, "I said when you
suggested separating them, that it was a very doubtful experiment.
Together, they exhaust their effervescence on each other; separated--"

"They exhaust the whole school!" cried Miss Wadsworth, on the verge of
tears. "Of course they don't mean it, but their unfortunate
dispositions--"

"Don't mean it!" Miss Lord's eyes snapped. "Their heads are together
planning fresh escapades every moment they are not in class."

"But what have they done?" persisted Mrs. Trent.

Miss Wadsworth hesitated a moment in an endeavor to choose examples from
the wealth of material that presented itself.

"I found Priscilla deliberately stirring up the contents of Keren's
bureau drawers with a shinny stick, and when I asked what she was doing,
she replied without the least embarrassment, that she was trying to
teach Keren to be less exact; that Mrs. Trent had asked her to do it."

"Um," mused the Dowager, "that was not my precise request, but no
matter."

"But the thing that has really troubled me the most," Miss Wadsworth
spoke diffidently, "is a matter almost a blasphemy. Keren has a very
religious turn of mind, but an unfort