, five of us were caught in the
teachers' own sitting-room at three A.M."

Her hearers looked horrified enough to satisfy even Sally May, who loved
to tell a story, and she related one epic after another, until the York
audience were convinced that life would not be worth living unless they
too could recount similar tales when they went home for the Christmas
vacation.

Miss Marlowe and her rules were forgotten, and they laid their plans for
a midnight supper.

"But Miss Marlowe knows that your box has arrived," objected practical
Nancy.

"Then we'll buy some buns at tuck and have a _camouflage_ supper after
the lecture, and the real one at midnight," retorted Sally May, not to
be done out of her scheme.

"I wish we could ask Cathy, don't you?" said Josephine; "she's been such
a dear that it seems a shame to have a glorification without her."

Catherine, hard at work at her desk in her own room, caught the sound of
her name, and the next sentence in an excited voice revealed the fact
that a midnight supper was being planned for that very night. Her first
impulse, of course, was to tell the crew that she had unwittingly
overheard them, and use her influence as captain and prefect to stop the
whole proceeding; and then, because she was taking her duties as a
prefect very seriously, she stopped to consider the little escapade in a
new light.

Sally May, Catherine could see, was going to be troublesome. Already she
had chafed at several time-honoured rules and customs, for her sense of
reverence for traditions had been stifled by her ceaseless change of
residence, and Sally May was becoming exceedingly popular. Her soft
Southern voice, with its delicious inflections and its lazy drawl, was
most persuasive. The crew of the "Jolly Susan" had so far been a model
crew and Catherine had not yet had to enforce discipline, but at the
last prefects' meeting Sally May had been mentioned as the cause of two
practical jokes perpetrated in other parts of the house, and, "Such
things are not done, they are simply not done," said the School captain
severely; "Catherine, you must take Sally May in hand." Perhaps this was
her chance. She waited until the four o'clock bell scattered the
conspirators to practising and gymnasium classes and then went down to
the captain's study.

"Come in," said a clear ringing voice as Catherine knocked at Eleanor's
door; "you're just in time for tea--here, you toast the crumpets and
I'll brew the