interest in the young ladies of the school. Her
keen eyes would peer out of windows, and her head bob round doors in
continual efforts to gain some idea of their mode of life. A chance word
from one of them wreathed her in smiles. She was a funny, odd little
object with her short squat figure and round bullet head, and thin
little legs appearing underneath her official white apron. Her official
name was Susan, but every girl in the school called her Susannah Maude.
At the instigation of Miss Bowes her patrons took the furthering of her
education in hand, and each in turn bestowed half an hour a day in
hearing her read history, geography, or some other suitable subject. A
little bewildered among so many fresh teachers, the small maid
nevertheless made what efforts she could, and read loud and lustily,
even if she did not altogether digest the matter she was supposed to be
studying.

"I believe she reads the words without taking in a scrap of the sense,"
laughed Ulyth, when her turn as instructress was over. "She was gazing
at my dress, or my watch, or my handkerchief whenever she could spare an
eye from her book. She thinks them of far more importance than Henry
VIII."

"So she does," agreed Lizzie. "I tried to get her interested yesterday
in the number of his wives--I thought the Bluebeard aspect of it might
move her--but she only said: 'What does it matter when they're all
dead?' I felt so blank that I couldn't say any more."

Nobody quite remembered whose idea it was that their orphan should be
invited to the Camp-fire meetings. Somebody in a soft-hearted moment
suggested it, and Mrs. Arnold replied: "Oh yes, poor little soul! Bring
her, by all means." So Susannah Maude had come, and once there she
apparently regarded herself as a member of the League, and turned up on
every available occasion. How much she understood of the proceedings or
of the scope of the society nobody could fathom. She sat, during the
meetings, bolt upright, with folded arms, as if she were in school, her
bright, beady eyes fixed unblinkingly upon Mrs. Arnold, whom she seemed
to regard as a species of priestess in charge of occult mysteries.

"Would I be struck dumb if I told what goes on here?" she asked Ulyth
one day; and, although she was assured that no such act of vengeance on
the part of Providence would overtake her, she nevertheless preserved a
secrecy worthy of a Freemason, and would drop no hint in the kitchen as
to the nature of t