caged gas jets, turned low. In each room was a candle in
an ample stick. The girls had to use these if they needed to move about
in the night, and all the after-hour spreads were illuminated by
candles, each girl participating bringing her own taper to the feast.

The hour between nine and ten dragged by drearily enough. Especially was
this so for Nancy. She lay wide awake, with swollen, feverish eyes, and
waited for the ten o'clock gong.

At that hour the lights on the upper floors were out and, a little
later, Miss Maybrick's soft footfall sounded in the corridor.
Occasionally the teacher turned a knob and looked into a study. The
draperies between studies and bedrooms had to be left open so that the
teacher could cast the ray of her electric hand-lamp right in upon the
pillows of the two beds.

And if there was not the proper number of heads on those pillows, an
investigation was sure to follow!

Miss Maybrick was known to be a sound sleeper, however. It was pretty
safe for the girls to have their "orgies" on the nights this particular
instructor was on duty.

Miss Maybrick went past and, in a moment, Cora slipped out of bed and
to the door. In the moonlight Nancy saw her crouched beside the door,
reach up and turn the knob, open the portal a little way, and listen.

The rustle of the teacher's skirts was lost in the distance. She had
already been upon the upper floors; and now her inspection was over. The
soft closing of her own door, which was right at the head of the
stairway, came to the ears of the listening girls.

Almost immediately there was a rustling and whispering in the corridor.
Cora threw the door of Number 30 open. Somebody giggled.

"Come on!" whispered Cora, sharply.

Nancy, feeling that it was all wrong and that no good would come of it,
slid out of bed, sought her slippers with her bare toes, wriggled her
feet into them, and seized her gray robe.

She darted out of Number 30 before any of the visitors arrived, and went
to the nearest bathroom. There she waited until she was pretty sure the
twenty girls had gathered to enjoy their stolen fun.

Number 38 was just across in the other short corridor. Nancy ran there,
sobbing quietly to herself. Just before she opened the door somebody
grabbed her arm.

Oh! how frightened she was for the moment. She was sure a lurking
teacher had found her out of her room.

"Hush! don't be a dunce! It's only me," said a kind, if sharp, voice.

"Jennie B