e says that they give this girl
everything she wants. She never took money either, even when it was
lying out in plain sight, and her being so ready to give back the things
seems to show that she didn't take them for any special purpose."

"Then if she's a----" began Betty.

"Kleptomaniac," supplied Jean.

"She isn't exactly a thief, is she?"

"No, I suppose not," said Jean doubtfully.

"But she isn't a very safe person to have around," said Eleanor.

"I'll tell you what," said Betty, who had only been awaiting a favorable
opening to make her suggestion. "It's too big a question for us to try
to settle, isn't it, girls? Let's go and tell Miss Ferris all that we've
found out so far, and leave the whole matter in her hands."

Then Jean justified the confidence that Betty had shown in her. "You
couldn't do anything better," she said, rising to leave.

"I wish I'd known her well enough to talk things over with her,--not
public things like this, I mean, but private ones. Betty, here's a note
that Christy Mason asked me to give you. That's what I came in for,
originally. Of course this affair of Miss Harrison is yours, not mine,
and I shan't mention it again, unless Miss Ferris decides to make it
public, as I don't believe she will. By the way, I wonder if you know
that Miss Harrison can't graduate with us."

"You mean that she has been caught stealing before?" asked Eleanor.

"Oh, no, but she couldn't make up the French that she flunked at
midyears, and she must be behind in other subjects, too. I heard rumors
about her having been dropped, and last week I saw the proof of our
commencement program. Her name isn't on the diploma list."

"Oh, I believe I'm almost glad of that," said Betty softly. "It's
dreadful to be glad that she has failed in every way, but I can't bear
to think that she belongs in our class."

So it was Miss Ferris who met the Blunderbuss in Eleanor's room that
night, who managed the return of the stolen property to its owners,
with a suggestion that it would be a favor to the whole college not to
say much about its recovery, and she who, finding suddenly that the
noise of the campus tired her, spent the rest of the term at Miss
Harrison's boarding place on Main Street, where she could watch over the
poor girl and minimize the risk of her indulging her fatal mania again
while she was at Harding. She was nonchalant over having been caught
stealing, but her failure in scholarship had almost broke