g Gladys well, and how impossible it would be for her to do
anything that might injure another, had carefully kept from her any
direct participation in it. She knew in a general way what was to be
done, but was ignorant of particulars.

No sooner had the whole been made known to her, than without a word,
though it was after the time when the girls were allowed to leave
their rooms, without the slightest effort to move softly, she passed
the doors of several teachers, up into another corridor, not stopping
until she tapped at Jenny Barton's room.

The tap was followed by the muffled sound of scurrying feet, of a
table pulled hastily away, of whispers intended to be soft, but in the
hurry having a strangely sibilant tone, that made them almost words
spoken aloud, to the impatient Gladys.

She rapped a second time, a little louder than the first, and the door
was opened by Jenny, in her nightdress. The gas in the room was out,
and there was no one to be seen.

"Why, Gladys Philbrick!" she exclaimed crossly, pulling Gladys hastily
in; "you frightened us almost out of our wits. Girls! it's only
Gladys!"

Out from under the beds and from the closets in the two bedrooms crept
one after another the girls of the club. All were there but Susan and
Gladys; and they would have been invited, but it was well known that
if Gladys broke a rule of the school, she never rested until she had
made full confession to one of the teachers. She was not to be trusted
in the least; and, of course, Susan could not be invited without her,
so the knowledge of the spread which was to succeed the tableaux had
been carefully kept from them. No wonder at Jenny's reception of her!

Somewhat staggered by this, and by the appearance of the hidden,
laughing girls, Gladys stood for a moment staring blankly around her,
then she asked, singling Kate Underwood out from among the others,--

"Kate! did you write that poem to make fun of Marion Parke's country
cousin?"

"Why do you ask?" answered Kate, turning brusquely upon Gladys.

"Because, if you did, and if, as Sue says, you got up those tableaux
to make fun of him, I think you are the meanest girl in the school;
and as for the club--a club that would do such a thing, I wouldn't be
a member of a moment longer, not if you would give me a million
dollars!"

"Well, as we have no million to give you, and wouldn't part with even
a copper to have you stay, you can have your name taken off the roll
any