t the fudge pan. "Oh!" a
shriek of dismay, "my dear young and giddy friend, we're all out of
sugar. What if we should want to make anything to-night? Let's run back
to the grocery by the kitchen this minute."

Owing to this delay, Gertrude had been in the study for more than ten
minutes, staring out at the trees writhing in the wind, when she was
startled by the sound of a suffocated shriek, followed by a scamper of
four thick-soled shoes, the heels smiting the corridor floor with
disgracefully mannish force. The door flew inward vehemently, and Bea
shot clear across the room to collapse in the farthest corner, hiding her
face in the fudge pan while her shoulders quivered and heaved
terrifyingly. Berta walked in behind her, and after one reproachful look,
sat down carefully in a rocker and brushed her scarlet face before
beginning to giggle helplessly.

"You're the meanest person! Beatrice Leigh, you knew I was turning into
the wrong alleyway, but you never said a word. You wanted to see me
disgraced. The door opened like magic, and there she stood as if she had
slid through the keyhole. She stood there plastered against the wall
and--and--regarded us----"

"Oh!" moaned Bea in ecstasy, one fiery ear and half a cheek emerging from
the kindly shelter of the fudge pan, "she glared. She wondered why those
two idiotic individuals were stalking toward her without a word or knock
or smile, when suddenly the hinder one exploded and vanished, while the
other ignominiously--stark, mute, inglorious--fled, ran, withdrew--so to
speak----"

"Why didn't you say something?" groaned Berta. "I simply lost my wits
from the surprise. She was the very last person I expected to see
anywhere around here. How in the world did she happen to borrow the next
room to ours? She'll think we were making fun of her--that we did it on
purpose. She's awfully sensitive anyhow!"

"Well, you two are silly!" commented Gertrude, her face again toward the
driving storm. "Who was it? Not a senior, I hope, or a faculty?"

Bea straightened herself abruptly, the laughter driven sternly out of
every muscle except one little twitching dimple at the corner of her
mouth. "It was Sara," she exclaimed, "and she is pale as a ghost. She has
never been so strong since waking up on that boat and finding a burglar
trying to steal the ring off her finger during the holidays. You know how
she jumps at every sudden noise, and she's been getting thinner and
thinner, and