nt as to the nature of their proceedings, they replied
that they would cheerfully face torture or the stake before consenting
to reveal a single word. Now Dormitory No. 9 had never quite forgiven
Irene for deserting in favour of No. 5 and Mavie Chapman. Its occupants
discussed the matter as they went to bed.

"Renie's so fearfully important," complained Betty. "I asked her
something this morning, and she said: 'Don't interrupt me, child,' as if
she were the King busy on State affairs."

"She'll hardly look at us nowadays," agreed Sylvia plaintively.

"I'll tell you what," suggested Marjorie. "Let's get up a secret society
of our own. It would take the wind out of Renie's sails tremendously to
find that we had passwords and signals and all the rest of it. She'd be
most fearfully annoyed."

"It's a good idea," assented Sylvia, "but what could we have a secret
society about?"

"Well, why not have it a sort of patriotic one, to do all we can to help
the war, knit socks for the soldiers, and that kind of thing?"

"We knit socks already," objected Betty.

"That doesn't matter, we must knit more, that's all. There must be heaps
of things we can do for the war. Besides, it's the spirit of the thing
that counts. We pledge ourselves to give our last drop of blood for our
country. We've all of us got fathers and brothers who are fighting."

"Chrissie hasn't anybody at the front," demurred Betty, rather
spitefully.

"That's not Chrissie's fault. We're not all born with brothers. Because
you're lucky enough to have an uncle who's an admiral, you needn't quite
squash other people!"

"How you fly out! I was only mentioning a fact."

"Anybody with tact wouldn't have mentioned it."

"What shall we call the society?" asked Sylvia, bringing the disputants
back to the original subject of the discussion.

"How would 'The Secret Society of Patriots' do?" suggested Chrissie.

"The very thing!" assented Marjorie warmly. "Trust Chrissie to hit on
the right name. We'll let just a few into it--Patricia, perhaps, and
Enid and Mollie, but nobody else. We must take an oath, and regard it as
absolutely binding."

"Like the Freemasons," agreed Sylvia. "I believe they kill anybody who
betrays them."

"We'll have an initiation ceremony," purred Marjorie, highly delighted
with the new venture. "And of course we'll arrange a password and
signals, and I don't see why we shouldn't have a cryptogram, and write
each other notes. It would b