m of Mrs. Jackson stepped out of
it. She paid what was owing for the call, thanked the postmaster for his
civility, and hustled the girls into the conveyance as quickly as
possible.

"I suppose girls will be girls," she said, "but I think you've been very
silly ones to-day! Why didn't you keep with the rest of the school, as
you ought to have done?"

"It sounds a most horrible greedy confession," replied Beatrice
guiltily, "but I'm afraid it was all the fault of--buns! They just threw
us late, and we missed the others. We'll never buy buns again! Never!
Never! _O peccavi!_ We have sinned!"

And she looked so humorously contrite that Mrs. Jackson, who was
inclined to scold, laughed in spite of herself, and forgave the
delinquents.

"On condition that such a thing doesn't happen again!" she declared.

"Trust us! We wouldn't go through such an experience again for all the
buns in the world! Next time we'll cling to the College apron strings
like--like----"

"Like adhesive sticking-plaster!" supplied Ingred gently.

"Or oysters to a mermaid's tail!" murmured Verity.

CHAPTER IX

A Hostel Frolic

"The Foursome League," which Verity had instituted with her room-mates
at the hostel, was kept by them as a solemn compact. They stuck to one
another nobly, though often in the teeth of great inconvenience. It
generally took three of them to urge Fil through her toilet in the
mornings and drag her down to breakfast in time. She was always so
terribly sleepy at seven o'clock, and so positive that she could whisk
through her dressing in ten minutes, and that it was quite unnecessary
to get up so soon: even when the others mercilessly pulled the
bed-clothes from her, and pointed to their watches, she would dawdle
instead of "whisking," and spend much superfluous time over manicure or
dabbing on cucumber cream to improve her complexion. She was so innocent
about her little vanities, and conducted them with such child-like
complacency, that the girls tolerated them quite good humoredly, and
even assisted sometimes. One of them generally volunteered to brush her
long flaxen hair, and tie her ribbon, and half out of habit the others
would tidy her cubicle, which was apt to be chaotic, and put her things
away in her drawers. They did it almost automatically, for they had come
to look upon Fil somewhat in the light of a big doll, the exclusive
property of "The Foursome League," and to be treated as the mascot of
the dor