est! S'pose the
faculty'll offer a reward? Jiminy cricket! Wish they would! I bet I'd
find her. Why, sir, I'd make a first rate detective, I would. I've
been readin' up on that thing an' I don't know but it would pay me
better'n paintin', even if I am a 'born artist,' as Miss Gwendolyn
says."

"Born nincompoop! That's what you are, and the all-conceitedest
lazybones 't ever trod shoe leather! Dragging out of bed this time o'
day, and not a shoe cleaned--in my dormitory, anyway!" retorted
Dawkins, in disgust.

"Huh! old woman, what's the matter with you? And why ain't you _in_
bed, 'stead of out of it? I thought all you night-owls went to bed
when the rest of us got up. You need sleep, you do, for I never knowed
you crosser'n you be now--which is sayin' consid'able!"

Dawkins was cross, there was no denying that, for her nerves were
sadly shaken by her fears for the girl she had learned to love so
dearly.

"You get about your business, boy, at once; without tarryin' to pass
remarks upon your betters;" and she made a vicious dash toward him as
if to strike him. He knew this was only pretence, and sidled toward
her, mockingly, then, as she raised her hand again--this time with
more decision--he cowered aside and made a rush out of the kitchen.

"Well, that's odd! The first time I ever knew that boy to turn down
his breakfast!" remarked the _chef_, pointing to a heaped up plate at
the back of the range. "Well, I shan't keep it any longer. He'll have
the better appetite for dinner, ha, ha!"

Jack's unusual indifference to good food was due to a sound he had
overheard. It came from somewhere above and passed unnoticed by all
but him, but set him running to a distant stairway which led from "the
old laundry" to the drying-loft above: and a sigh of satisfaction
escaped him as he saw that the door of this was shut.

"Lucky for me, that is! I was afraid they'd been looking here for that
Calvert girl, but they haven't, 'cause the lock ain't broke and the
key's in my pocket," said he, in a habit he had of talking to himself.

The noise beyond the door increased, and worried him, and he hurriedly
sought the key where he usually carried it. The door could be, and had
been, closed by a spring, but it needed that key to open it, as he had
boastingly remembered. Unhappy lad! In not one of his many and ragged
pockets could that key now be found! While in the great room beyond
the noise grew loud, and louder, with each passing s