ing?"

The freshman looked at Patty, and looked at the carpet, and smiled
dubiously. "No," she admitted; "I don't believe it would."

"I knew you would say that!" exclaimed Patty, in a tone of relief. "Now
what would you advise us to do with the carpet?"

The freshman looked blank. "I--I don't know, unless you take it up," she
stammered.

"The very thing!" said Patty. "I wonder we hadn't thought of it before."

Priscilla reappeared at this point with the announcement, "Peters is
the most suspicious man I ever knew!" But she stopped uncertainly as she
caught sight of the freshman.

"Priscilla," said Patty, severely, "I _hope_ you didn't divulge the fact
that we are hanging the walls with tapestry"--this with a wave of her
hand toward the printed cotton cloth dangling from the molding.

"I tried not to," said Priscilla, guiltily, "but he read 'tapestry' in
my eyes. He had no sooner looked at me than he said, 'See here, miss;
you know it's against the rules to hang curtains on the walls, and you
mustn't put nails in the plastering, and I don't believe you need a
hammer anyway.'"

"Disgusting creature!" said Patty.

"But," continued Priscilla, hastily, "I stopped and borrowed Georgie
Merriles's hammer on my way back. Oh, I forgot," she added; "he says we
can't take the closet door off its hinges--that as soon as we get ours
off five hundred other young ladies will be wanting theirs off, and
that it would take half a dozen men all summer to put them back again."

A portentous frown was gathering on Patty's brow, and the freshman,
wishing to avert a possible domestic tragedy, inquired timidly, "Who is
Peters?"

"Peters," said Priscilla, "is a short, bow-legged gentleman with a red
Vandyke beard, whose technical title is janitor, but who is really
dictator. Every one is afraid of him--even Prexy."

"I'm not," said Patty; "and," she added firmly, "that door is coming
down whether he says so or not, so I suppose we shall have to do it
ourselves." Her eyes wandered back to the carpet and her face
brightened. "Oh, Pris, we've got a beautiful new scheme. My friend here
says she doesn't like the carpet at all, and suggests that we take it
up, get some black paint, and put it on the floor ourselves. I agree,"
she added, "that a Flemish oak floor covered with rugs would be a great
improvement."

Priscilla glanced uncertainly from the freshman to the floor. "Do you
think they'd let us do it?"

"It would never do to as