away by that time. I've come to collect my night things now."

"What a ridiculous swindle! Can't I go too?"

"No; remember, it's a case of isolation!" said Mabel, smiling.

"But you'll be afraid to sleep there all alone."

"Oh, no, I shan't! Mademoiselle offered to send Hunter--she's generally
told off for hospital duty--but I said I'd rather not have her. I'm not
a scrap ill; it's only my head."

"And Mademoiselle's idiotic nonsense! I never heard of such a silly
notion as to pack you off there! She's absolutely mad!"

"Well, it can't be helped. There's no one to appeal to. Mademoiselle is
as much in authority, I suppose, as Miss Forster, or Miss Bardsley, or
anybody else."

"The school seems lost without Miss Drummond."

Feeling decidedly a martyr, Mabel, taking the various possessions she
needed for the night, marched upstairs to the hospital.

"If it's anything catchable I'll catch it too!" Aldred called after her.
"You're not to be ill up there without me! You may choose measles, or
scarlatina, or anything you like; I'm quite agreeable, so long as I can
have a share in it!"

"It's for Mademoiselle to decide the complaint to-morrow!" laughed
Mabel, already half-way down the passage. "I don't mind what it is, so
long as she doesn't declare it's suppressed smallpox, and have me
re-vaccinated as a precaution. Good night!"

Aldred felt injured and aggrieved at her room-mate's banishment. It was
really very tiresome and unnecessary of Mademoiselle to have insisted
upon it.

"She's a Jack-in-office!" thought Aldred. "If she were head of the
school, I should ask to be taken away. How particularly slow and stupid
it is without Mabel! She's forgotten her bedroom slippers, by the by. I
wonder if I dare take them up to her? On the whole, I think I'd better
not; I suppose she'll manage without them."

It was a warm evening, and light until very late. Aldred undressed
leisurely, and took a last delicious sniff at the roses that framed her
window before she jumped into bed. She was tired, and dropped asleep
almost immediately, falling into a confused dream, in which Mabel and
Mademoiselle and measles were hopelessly mixed. The doctor had come to
see Mabel, and had prescribed a huge bottle of nasty medicine, labelled
"Two quarts to be taken every two hours". He was coming again, and was
ring-ring-ringing at the front-door bell. Why did not one of the
servants go to the door? And why was Mademoiselle sounding the go