"It was my cousin, Miss Noble, who overheard the conversation," she
reluctantly admitted. "She repeated it to me in confidence. She does
not wish to be brought into this affair. You will kindly leave her out
of it entirely."

"Your dictation is unbecoming, Miss Seaton," coldly reproved the matron.
"I shall use my own judgment in this matter."

"You are all excused," she continued, addressing the ill-assorted group.
"We will leave this matter as it stands for the present. When I have
decided what to do, I will send for you again. Until then, not a word
concerning it to anyone."

Marian and Maizie rose with alacrity. They had no desire to prolong the
interview. It had not panned out to suit them. Jane's concise
explanation of the gown incident had practically turned a serious
offense into a laughable blunder. Mrs. Weatherbee undoubtedly believed
Jane. After listening to her, she had not asked either Norma or Judith a
single question. Instead, she had closed the discussion with a curtness
that was not reassuring to the plotters.

"Elsie will have to help us out," were Marian's first words when she and
Maizie reached their room. "She'll be raving when I tell her. She'll
have to do it, though. If she doesn't, I'll threaten to tell all the
girls about the way that little French snip caught her listening at the
register."

"You might as well have owned up that it was you who listened outside
the dressing-room," shrugged Maizie. "Then you could have passed the
whole thing off as a misunderstanding. That would have ended it. Now
we're both in for a fine lot of trouble."

"Then why did you nod your head when I looked at you?" asked Marian
fiercely.

"Oh, just to keep things going," drawled Maizie. "I like to see those
girls all fussed up about nothing. Besides, Weatherbee can't do anything
very serious about our part of it. She can say we are mischief-makers
and call us down and that's all. No one except ourselves knows the truth
about the ring and the pin. That's the only thing that could really get
us into trouble."

"No one will ever know, either," declared Marian. "They're both in the
tray of my trunk. We'll take them home with us at Easter and leave them
there. That will be safest."

"You certainly leaped before you looked, this time," chuckled Maizie.
"That gown business was funny."

"Well, how was I to know? I heard Judy Stearns say she stole it,"
retorted Marian testily. "The whole thing sounded suspiciou