nd Cherry bringing a tray with a nice
supper. Julia Cloud fixed a hot-water bag to warm the chilled hands
and feet. It was so good to be at home! The tears rushed into her eyes
again, and her throat filled with sobs.

"O Cloudy!" She caught her aunt's hands. "I'll never, never do
anything again you don't want me to!" she sobbed out, and then burst
into another paroxysm of tears.

"There! Now, kid! Don't cry any more!" pleaded Allison, springing to
her side and kneeling by her, smoothing her hair roughly. "You were a
little winner! You had every bit of your nerve with you. Why, you did
a great thing, kid! Outwitting those two brutes and bringing that girl
back in spite of herself. But the greatest thing of all was your
making her confess. Now they've got something to go on. If you hadn't
done that, it would have been her word against yours; and I imagine
she's always managed to keep things where she could get around people
with her wiles. Now she's got to face facts; and believe me, kid,
it'll be better for her in the end. She was headed straight for a bad
end, and no mistake. All the fellows knew it, and the faculty
suspected it; and it was making no end of trouble. But now the girl
may be saved, for that dean never lets a student go to destruction,
they say, if he can help it. Oh, of course he'll fire her. She isn't
fit to be around here. But he'll keep an eye on her, and he'll fire
her in such a way that she'll have another chance to make good if
she's willing to take it. Don't you worry about spoiling her life.
She'd set out to spoil it in the first place, and the best thing that
could possibly happen to her was to get stopped before she went too
far. From all you say I shouldn't think a marriage with that fellow
would have been any advantage to her."

"Oh, he was _awful_, Allison!" shuddered Leslie. "He smelled of
liquor; and he had great, coarse lips and eyes; and he put his arms
around her, and kissed her right there before us all; and they acted
perfectly disgusting! I'm almost sure from things I heard them say
that she hadn't been engaged to him at all, she hadn't even known him
till last week. She met him in town--just picked him up on the street!
And that Fred Hicks! I don't _believe_ now he was her cousin at all."

"Probably not. But leave that all to the dean. He'll ferret it out. He
went in there to the telephone before he left, and from what I heard I
imagine he's got detectives out after those two guy