ke
up before to-morrow night. I'd like to go, but I suppose I can't with
that to do."

"Then, Bess," said Nan, "you and Rhoda and I will be a committee of
three to wait on Mrs. Bragley to-morrow."

"Girls, isn't it warm in here?" questioned Laura.

"Warm? With the heating plant broken down?" queried Nan.

"It feels warm and I'm going to open a window," went on Laura, and,
suiting the action to the word, she shoved up a window that was handy.

"Br-r-r!" came from several of the others.

"My, but that's cold!"

"We'll all get sick!"

"I know a way to fix Laura!" cried Rhoda, and, as she spoke, the girl
from Rose Ranch leaned out of the window and reached upward.

"What are you going to do?" asked Bess.

"Get an icicle for her," answered Rhoda, and a moment later brought to
view an icicle she had broken away from a projection above the window.
The icicle was all of a foot and a half long and an inch or more in
thickness.

"No, you don't!" cried Laura, leaping away as Rhoda came after her with
the bit of ice. "Don't you dare to put that thing down my neck!"

"It will cool you off, Laura," said Rhoda; but just then she slipped
and went down, shattering the icicle into fragments.

"No more noise," whispered Bess, closing the window.

At that moment, Nan's clock, sounding the first stroke of midnight,
startled the girls.

"The hour indeed waxeth late," whispered Laura, and vanished.

One by one the others noiselessly followed. There was the almost
inaudible sound of softly closing doors, and quiet reigned over Lakeview
Hall.

In Nan's room for the second time that night there was the sound of
measured breathing, but this time it was genuine.

CHAPTER VIII

ON THE ROAD

"Ugh!" shivered Nan the next morning when she came into the room after
her bath. "This isn't Palm Beach, is it, Bess? More like the North Pole,
eh?"

"Palm Beach," echoed Bess disgustedly, as she reluctantly slipped out of
her warm bed and reached for her bathrobe. "It reminds me of it--it's so
different. When that horrid old rising gong sounded, I was dreaming that
I was there standing on the beach ready for a swim. I can feel that warm
sand about my feet now," and she gave her cold little feet a vicious
shove into her far from warm bedroom slippers.

"I don't believe Grace has slept much," smiled Nan.

"I know she hasn't," returned Bess, as she hurriedly dressed. "I'm sure
I wouldn't have slept a wink if I had been in h