st?"

"There's only one other way. Mrs. Arnold is coming to The Woodlands on
Friday afternoon. Suppose we wait, catch her alone, and tell her all
about it. She's our 'Guardian of the Fire', and we ought to be able to
ask her things when we're in difficulties. She doesn't belong to the
school, so it isn't like telling a teacher or a monitress. We know we
can trust her absolutely."

"Right-O! But it seems a long time to have to wait."

"It can't be helped," said Ulyth, as they hurried back through the
garden.

She had decided, as she thought, for the best, though, as the result
proved, she had chosen a most unfortunate course.

CHAPTER XVI

Amateur Conjuring

Ulyth went to her bedroom that evening in much agitation of mind. She
was torn by conflicting impulses. At one moment she longed to tax Rona
frankly with a breach of school rules, air the whole subject, and state
her most emphatic opinion upon it. If Rona alone had been concerned in
the matter she would have done so without hesitation, but the knowledge
of the number of girls who were involved made her pause.

"I might do more harm than good," she reflected. "After the way Tootie
has been inciting them to take sides against the seniors, they'd be up
in arms at the least hint. It will be worse if they know they're
discovered, and yet go on in an even more underhand fashion."

Ulyth's abstraction was so marked that her room-mate could not fail to
notice it.

"What's the matter with you to-night?" she asked. "I've never seen you
so glum before. Have you been getting into a row with Teddie?"

"I'm all right. One can't always be talking, I suppose," returned Ulyth
rather huffily. "Some people go on like a perpetual gramophone."

"Meaning Corona Margarita Mitchell, I suppose? As you like, O Queen!
I'll shut up if my babble offends the royal ears. There! Don't look so
tragic. I don't want to make myself a nuisance. But all the same it's
depressing to see you looking like a mixture of Hamlet and Ophelia and
Iphigenia and--and--Don Quixote. Was he tragic too? I forget."

"Hardly," said Ulyth, smiling in spite of herself.

"Well, I get mixed up among history and literature, can't always
remember which is real and which is make-up. It's a fact. I put down
Portia as history in my exercise yesterday, and said the story of the
Spanish Armada was told by Chaucer. Now you're laughing, and you look
more like Ulyth Stanton. Sit down on this bed. There! Open yo