ic sanctum. So far none of the girls
had been allowed to peep inside, and the wildest rumours were afloat
as to what the room contained. Batteries and other apparatus had been
seen to be carried upstairs, and those scouts who had ventured along
the forbidden upper landing reported that through the closed door they
could hear weird noises as of turning wheels or bubbling crucibles. It
was surmised in the school that Miss Gibbs, having found a congenial
mediaeval atmosphere for her researches, was working on the lines of
the ancient alchemists, and attempting to discover the elixir of life
or the philosopher's stone. One fact was certain. Miss Gibbs had set
up a telescope in her solitary attic. She had bought it second-hand,
during the holidays, from the widow of a coastguardsman, and with its
aid she studied the landscape by day and the stars by night. The
girls considered she kept a wary eye on watch for escaped Germans or
Zeppelins, and regarded the instrument in the light of a safeguard for
the establishment.

"Besides which, anything's a blessing that takes Gibbie upstairs and
keeps her from buzzing round us all the time," averred Raymonde.

"She's welcome to keep anything she likes in her room, from a stuffed
crocodile to a snake in a bottle!" yawned Fauvette. "All I ask is that
she doesn't take me up and improve my mind. I'm getting fed up with
hobbies. I can't show an intelligent interest in all. My poor little
brains won't hold them. What with repousse work and stencilling and
chip carving, I hardly ever get half an hour to enjoy a book. My idea
of a jinky time is to sit by the moat and read, and eat chocolates. By
the by, has that copy of _The Harvester_ come yet? Hermie promised to
get it for the library."

The girls at the Grange had fashions in books, and at present they
were all raving over the works of Gene Stratton Porter. Even Raymonde,
not generally much of a reader, had succumbed to the charms of
_Freckles_ and _A Girl of the Limberlost_. The accounts of the
American swamp forest fascinated her. It was a veritable "call of the
wild."

"I'd give anything--just anything--to get into such a place!" she
confided to Fauvette. "I'd chance even the snakes and mosquitoes. Just
think of the trees and the flowers and the birds and the butterflies!
Why don't we have things like that in England?"

"I expect we do, only one never gets to see them. There's a wood over
there on the hill that looks absolutely top