est kimono, and,
carrying mug and sofa pillow, followed Josephine and Jane to the
corridor.

Nancy and Sally May had already gone, Josephine informed her in a
piercing whisper, and Nancy had said to be _very_ careful of the boards
opposite Miss Marlowe's door because they sometimes squeaked horribly.

Stealthily in Indian file they crept down the corridor.

Horrors! The boards certainly did creak! Miss Marlowe's light was still
on! What if she should open her door!

Judith, with her eyes glued on the crack of light, clutched her kimono
more tightly as if to escape being seen, and in some inexplicable way
her mug slid from her cold fingers.

The fate of Sally May's party hung in the balance for just so long as it
takes a mug to fall to the ground, and Judith for a nightmare second
felt the bitterness of having betrayed her friends to the enemy; but
Jane, with a magical dexterity, caught the mug "on the fly" as Judith
described it later, and for the time being they were saved.

Judith's heart was still thumping from their narrow escape when they
joined the rest of the party in the common room at the head of the
stairs. The blinds had been pulled up to let in the pale moonlight, and
in the semi-darkness Judith could see five shadowy forms seated on their
pillows around the precious box.

"Are we all here?" said Sally May in a sepulchral whisper.

"We are--thanks to Jane," said Judith, and the episode of the mug was
told to appreciative listeners.

"Put on your flash, Nancy," commanded Sally May; "no one is going to
pass this door and we'll never manage to carve the chicken with this
miserable knife unless we have more light."

With infinite precautions the papers were unwrapped, and mouths began to
water as certain favorite goodies appeared.

"Who's going to carve?" asked Sally May surveying with a certain dismay
a plump brown bird and a seemingly inadequate pocketknife.

"Draw lots," suggested Rosamond.

"Uggledy wuggledy doo,
Rackety wackety boo,
Out goes you!"

"Here, Jane, you're it." And Jane lost no time in attacking her job.

"My children! what _do_ you think? Here's a jelly or a mousse or
something--it's all creamy and quivery, anyway, and we haven't any
spoons!"

"I asked you--" began Jane reproachfully.

"Yes, I know you did, but Mother never mentioned a jelly and I thought
spoons would make a noise."

"Well, we'll have to have some," said Nancy practically.