on the floor in two
rows while Ruth and Helen passed out the good things. And my! they
were good! Lovely chicken salad mayonnaise, served on a fresh lettuce
leaf (the lettuce being smuggled in that very day in the chums' wash
basket)--a little dab to each girl. There were little pieces of
gherkins and capers in the mayonnaise, and Heavy reveled in this dish.
The most delicious slices of pink ham between soft crackers--and other
sandwiches of anchovy paste and minced sardines. _These_ were the
"solids."

Cakes, sweet crackers, Babette's cookies and lady-fingers were heaped
on other plates, ready to serve.

"My!" exclaimed Lluella Fairfax, "isn't that lay-out enough to punish
our poor digestive organs for a month? The last time we were caught
and brought up before Mrs. Tellingham she warned us that sweetcake and
pickles were as immoral as yellow-covered novels!"

"And she proved it, too," laughed the Fox. "She declared that a girl,
or woman without a good digestion could not really fill her rightful
place in the world and accomplish that which we are each supposed to
do. Oh, the Madam always proves her point."

"And I _was_ sick for a week afterward," sighed Lluella. "And had to
take _such_ a dose!"

At that moment, without the least forewarning, there came a smart rap
on the door. The sound smote the company of whispering, laughing girls
into a company of frightened, trembling culprits. They hardly dared
breathe, and when the commanding rap came for a second time neither
Ruth nor Helen had strength enough in their limbs to go to the door.

CHAPTER XVI

THE HAWK AMONG THE CHICKENS

Lluella and The Fox, more used to these orgies than some of the other
girls, had retained some presence of mind. Their first thought--if
this should prove to be the teacher or the matron--was to try and save
such of the feast as could be hidden. Each girl flung up a spread to
the pillows, and so hid the viands on the two beds. Then Mary Cox went
quickly to the door.

The cowering girls clung to each other and waited breathlessly. Mary
opened the door. There stood the abashed Belle Tingley, her plate in
one hand, the gilded vase in the other, and beside her was the tiny
figure of Mademoiselle Picolet, who looked very stern indeed at The Fox.

"I might have expected _you_ to be a ringleader in such an escapade as
this, Miss Cox," she said, sharply, but in a low voice. "I very well
knew, Miss Cox, when the new gi