and distinctly eight deep, short
scratches in an even line on the yellow-painted woodwork. She ran her
fingers over them until she could feel each scratch distinctly. Eight!
She counted them thrice to make sure, then jumped back into bed, and in
a few minutes was as fast asleep as her neighbors.

The days wore into weeks, and the weeks had soon made a month, and time,
as it went, left Baubie more demure, quieter and more diligent--diligent
apparently at least, for the knitting, though it advanced, showed no
sign of corresponding improvement, and the rest of her work was simply
scamped. March had given way to April, and the late Edinburgh spring at
last began to give signs of its approach. The chestnuts showed brown
glistening tips to their branch-ends, and their black trunks became
covered with an emerald-colored mildew; the rod-like branches of the
poplars turned a pale whitish-green and began to knot and swell; the
Water of Leith overflowed, and ran bubbling and mud-colored under the
bridge; and the grass by its banks, and even that in the front green of
the refuge, showed here and there a red-eyed daisy. The days grew longer
and longer, and of a mild evening the thrush's note was to be heard
above the brawling of the stream from the thickets of Dean Terrace
Gardens.

Baubie Wishart waited passively. Every day saw her more docile and
demure, and every day saw a new scratch added to her tally on the
window-shutter behind her bed.

May came, and the days climbed with longer strides to their goal, now
close; on reaching which they return slowly and unwillingly, but just as
surely; and to her joy, about, the third week in May, Baubie Wishart
counted one warm, clear night fifty-nine scratches on the shutter.
Fifty-nine! She knew the number well without counting them.

Whether she slept or watched that night is not known, but the next
morning at four saw Baubie make a hasty and rather more simple toilette
than usual, insomuch as she forgot to wash herself, brush her hair or
put on her shoes and stockings. Barefooted and bareheaded, much as she
had come, she went. She stole noiselessly as a shadow through the outer
dormitory, passing the rows of sleepers with bated breath, and not
without a parting glance of triumph at the bed where her rival,
Elizabeth Grant, was curled up. Down the wooden stair, her bare feet
waking no echoes, glided Baubie, and into the school-room, which looked
out on the front green. She opened the