or mine,"
laughed Katherine, "so I choose that. You probably won't find any if you
want to borrow."

"But seriously, girls, let's all be more careful," advised Betty, "and
let's ask other people to be. Think how perfectly awful it is to make
chances for girls to forget themselves. But I shan't believe it's a
Harding girl," she added decisively. "It would be perfectly easy for
any dishonest young woman to go through the houses without being
questioned. Perhaps she got frightened and didn't notice Babbie's money
on that account or didn't have time to snatch up anything but the pin."

Just then Babbie appeared, bringing Roberta and Rachel Morrison who had
met them in the hall, and in the general attack upon the fudge pan more
serious issues were forgotten.

It was now the busiest, gayest part of the long fall term. Flying fast
on the heels of the house play came Thanksgiving Day.

"And just to think of it!" wailed Bob. "Only two days vacation this
year, and Miss Stuart and the president dropping the most awful hints
about what will happen if you cut over. Nobody can go home. I hope the
faculty will all eat too much and have horrible attacks of indigestion."

"Well, we may as well have as much fun as we can out of it," said Babbie
philosophically. "I've written home for a spread; so we shan't die of
hunger."

"Mrs. Kent says she's going to give us the best Thanksgiving dinner we
ever ate," announced Betty cheerfully.

"I hope our matron will be seized with the same lofty ambition," said
Katherine. "If she is, and if the skating holds, I shan't mind staying
here."

"Weren't you going to stay anyway?" asked Helen Adams.

"Being a resident of the remote village of Kankakee, Illinois, and not
having been urged to visit any of my Eastern friends, I was," admitted
Katherine, solemnly, "but that doesn't make it any the nicer to have to
work all day Saturday."

The skating did last, and the man at the rink, being taken in hand by
the B's, sympathized heartily with their wrongs, and promised them a
three days' ice carnival, which meant search-lights, bonfires and a big
band on the ice every evening. There is nothing in the world more
exhilarating than skating to good music. The rink was thronged with
Harding girls and Winsted men, and the proprietor could not easily
regard himself as a bona fide philanthropist.

The paper-chase, to get up an appetite on Thanksgiving morning, was
Katherine Kittredge's idea and the baske