e wouldn't let me be brought back here to be shut up in an
attic, I know!"

She worked away laboriously, tearing at the paper to free the door. It
flashed across her mind that Miss Todd might have something to say
about the disfigurement of the wall, but as she had gone so far, that
did not deter her.

"Might as well finish it now," she smiled.

More hacking and tearing, then a gigantic shove, and the door suddenly
opened inwards. She was looking into another attic, a larger and much
darker room, lighted only by a tiny little skylight in the corner. It
seemed full of furniture--chairs and tables piled together, and
something that looked like a small grand piano. They were so thickly
coated with dust that it was difficult in the dim light to distinguish
more than upturned legs and general outlines. There did not appear to be
the least possibility of escape in this direction. The skylight was more
inaccessible than the one in her own attic. She sighed, went back,
washed her dusty hands, and got into bed again.

"I guess there'll be a fine old shindy when Miss Todd sees what I've
done," she soliloquized.

Miss Todd, who was thoroughly out of patience with Diana, did not hurry
to send her breakfast up early that morning. She decided that the
prisoner might very well wait until the school had finished its meal.
She even distributed the post first, and began to read her own letters.
She intended to carry the tray upstairs herself, and have another talk
with Diana. It was an unpleasant duty, and could be deferred for a few
minutes. Meantime the school also read its letters. There were two for
Hilary. One in the well-known home writing, and the other a long
envelope addressed in a strange hand. She opened this first. It
contained three manuscripts, and a printed notice to the effect that the
editor of the _Blue Magazine_ much regretted his inability, owing to
lack of space, to make use of the enclosed, for the kind offer of which
he was much obliged.

"My stories packed back by return of post. How disgusting!" groused
Hilary. "He might have taken one of them. Are they all here, by the by?
Yes; 'The Flower of the Forest', 'The Airman's Vengeance', and--Good
Heavens! What's this? Why--why, it's actually my essay on
'Reconstruction'!"

Hilary was so utterly dismayed that at first she could only stare aghast
at her recovered manuscript; then she tore straight off to Miss Todd.

"I must have put it in in mistake for my oth