ton.

CHAPTER XVI

A DISGRUNTLED REFORMER

Grace was not disappointed. Miss Duncan graciously agreed to let the
culprit off with a severe reprimand. Grace ran joyfully down the campus
to Holland House. She wished to tell Mabel Ashe the good news.

"Horrid little copy-cat! She doesn't deserve it," was Mabel's
unsympathetic comment as Grace related what had passed between Miss
Duncan and herself. "You know who she is, don't you, Grace?"

Grace shook her head. "I haven't the slightest idea," she said soberly.
"I can't believe it was any one at Wayne Hall. You don't suspect any
one, do you?"

"No," returned Mabel. "I haven't become very well acquainted with the
freshmen this year, so far. I suppose you did right in not exposing this
girl. I don't know whether I should be quite as charitable as you. If
you hadn't had a witness who saw you write the theme, you would now be
under a cloud. What I can't forget is the fact that she went so far as
to try to make Miss Duncan believe that you really copied it. Miss
Duncan said she insisted that the theme had disappeared from her room.
Think how foolish she must have felt when Miss Duncan confronted her
with the truth yesterday afternoon and made her confess!"

"Oh, Mabel!" Grace's distressed tone caused the pretty senior to rise
and stand in front of Grace's chair.

"What's the matter, Gracie," she said, taking Grace's hands in hers.

Grace raised her gray eyes to meet the inquiring brown ones bent on her.
"I'm so sorry," she said sadly, "but the girl who took my theme does
live in Wayne Hall."

"How do you know?" asked Mabel quickly.

"From what you said," returned Grace. "If she accused me of taking her
theme from her room, isn't it highly probable that her room is in Wayne
Hall? I wouldn't be likely to go into one of the campus houses to steal
a theme, would I? I must have dropped it in the hall or on the stairs
that night, and she must have come into the house directly after I did
and picked it up. I don't like to believe that one of our girls did it,"
Grace concluded sorrowfully, "but I am afraid it's true."

"Some day you'll stumble upon the guilty girl when you least expect to
find her," prophesied Mabel. "Now forget her, and tell me what you and
your chums are going to do over Thanksgiving. I am going to a dance on
Thanksgiving night with a Willston man. His fraternity is giving it."

"I don't know any college men in this part of the world," sighed Gra