r a tumbler of water.

"What on earth is the matter with the child?" asked Laura.

"Salt," Bess managed to articulate. "You gave me the salt, Rhoda,
instead of the sugar. Oh, what a dose!"

The girls wanted to shout with laughter, but caution made them smother
it as much as possible. And just at this juncture, the door opened part
way without even one little warning squeak, and a severe voice said:

"Young ladies, report to me at my office at noon to-morrow."

CHAPTER XI

A DANGEROUS PLOT

The girls, their laughter quenched, gazed at each other for a few
seconds with stupefaction. Then Nan sprang to the door, opened it, and
caught sight of a silently scurrying figure that could not by any means
be confounded with Mrs. Cupp's angular form or slow, measured movements.

The other girls, astonished, gazed at Nan open-mouthed as she re-entered
the room with flushed and indignant face and uttered the one
enlightening word:

"Linda."

"It sure was!"

"Of all the nerve!" began Laura slowly.

"Of all the meanness, I should say," amended Rhoda indignantly, as she
turned the key in the door.

Then the funny side struck them, and they sat doubled up with suppressed
laughter.

With increased hilarity the feast went on. The ice cream was brought in
and found to be in a very creditable state of preservation, and the
layer cake and small iced cakes were very soon being gobbled up.

To illustrate that "variety is the spice of life," so she said, Laura
had just followed some ice cream with a sour pickle, when a footstep
neared the door and a stern voice commanded them to open it.

"Linda," whispered Grace to Bess, who was nearest her, while Laura said
in a perfectly audible though subdued voice:

"You can just go about your business, you essence of meanness."

"You needn't think you can work that trick on us twice," added Grace.

"Don't judge our intellects by your own," scoffed Rhoda. "You must think
we were born yesterday."

The girls laughed at the sally, and silence ensued for a moment.

"I guess that has disposed of Linda for the rest of the night," exulted
Laura, and she applied herself again to the now rapidly melting ice
cream.

"Let's finish this cream while the eating's good," laughed Nan, when her
spoon was arrested on its way to her mouth by a voice outside the door.

"Nan Sherwood, I command you to open this door."

In overwhelming consternation the girls rose to their feet, and Nan
u