in fact,
chosen from the two classes for the same characteristics, lawlessness
and love of fun; last but not least, here was Grace Wolfe, the
acknowledged leader and queen of the Gang, when she deigned to be so.

Grace was in her wildest mood to-night. She danced solemnly around poor
Colney, who looked up in dismay from her mouse as the silent crowd came
pouring in, and assured her that her last hour was come.

"We are the Secret Tribunal!" she cried. "We have come to make a pile of
all your rubbish, Colney, and burn it, with you on top, like the
Phoenix. I am sure you would come up out of the ashes, if we left the
mouse out for you to finish."

"Oh, do be careful, please, Goat!" cried Colney Hatch. "Don't sit down
on that frog, he isn't dry! Dear me! do you--do want anything, girls?"

"We want your room, my love; and your company!" replied Grace. "Yet we
are merciful. Here!"

She twirled Cornelia's chair around, and set her with her face to the
wall; then moved the lamp so that its light fell on the board in her
lap.

"There!" she said. "Finish him, poor old dear, and we'll wake you up
when supper's ready. Now then! who's brought what?"

Then, from pockets, from surplice folds, from shawls and cloaks hung
carelessly over the arm, came forth a strange array of articles. One
had brought a chicken, one a cake. Here was a Dutch cheese, a tin of
crackers, a bottle of coffee, a bottle of olives, and a box of sardines.
Grace herself told in high glee how she had met one of the teachers in
the corridor, and had stood for five minutes talking about the next
day's lesson. "And with this under me cloak the while!" and with a
dramatic gesture she produced and held out a dish of lobster salad.

"If it had been potato," she declared, "I had been lost; the onion had
betrayed me. Blessings on the bland, the seductive mayonnaise, which
veiled the ardent lobster and his smell. She did smell it, however, and
said, so cheerfully, poor dear, that Miss Carey was evidently going to
give us a surprise to-morrow, for she smelt lobster. It was Miss
Cortlandt, too; I did want to say, 'Oh, come along, and have some!' She
is a rectangular fragment of baked clay, used for building purposes,
Miss Cortlandt is."

"What do you mean, Goat?" asked some one.

"I never use slang, as you know!" replied Grace, gravely. "It argues a
poverty of intellect, as well as a small vocabulary. I suppose you would
have said she was a brick, my child."

"