on be out of here. We'd stop the Middlers' banquet."

Miss Bowman laughed. "Do you still think it is a banquet? Well, it isn't.
They hadn't the least idea of giving one."

"But I saw the letter that Elizabeth Hobart sent to Achenbach, the
caterer. Isn't that proof enough?" And Mary looked as if, had this been a
legal case, she had Blackstone on her side.

"I saw the orders myself," she asseverated.

"Of course you did! Elizabeth intended you should!"

"But if there was not going to be a banquet, why should they take all the
trouble to make us believe there was?"

"Because, while you were hunting on the wrong scent, they could go on with
their plans. You poor Seniors," compassionately, "how you did work to stop
that banquet! Landis had her trip to the city for nothing. Do you know, I
don't believe you could have had it served in the laundry! It gets chilly
and damp there in the evening."

"I'll get out of this! I won't stay locked up," cried Mary. "Come, girls,
let's all yell together and pound on the floor."

Pandemonium reigned for a few moments. Miss Bowman, exasperatingly cool,
sat smiling. When the clamor ceased, she said, "Really, you are very
childish. Why not accept this with the spirit of philosophers? You are
here--you cannot get out until the Middlers see fit. Why not sit down and
converse sweetly? There's the weather. It's a safe subject. Nothing
personal about it. Or if you wish--"

"Shut up!" cried Mary, stamping her feet, and wholly losing her temper.
"If you had that key we'd fall upon you tooth and nail."

"And take it from you!" It was Landis who finished the remark.

"So I thought!" responded Miss Bowman complacently. "That's why I haven't
it."

It was Min Kean who first showed the spirit of a philosopher. "Oh, what's
the use of fussing about it? We're here, and I suppose we shall stay here
until those Middlers see fit to let us out. The more fuss we make, the
more fun for them."

At this Landis drew herself erect. "That is just what I was about to say.
A great deal of their fun will vanish when they discover that it is all
one to us whether we get out or stay here. I'm about as well satisfied. My
throat was a little husky anyway. Perhaps I would not have been able to
make that high note. How mortified I should have been!"

She spoke in seeming sincerity. Mary Wilson eyed her suspiciously. She
sighed. "Landis believes that we are what we make people believe we are.
You would make a capi