she must have," pursued Miriam.

Gertrude laughed.

9

Breakfast the next morning was a gay feast. The mood which had seized
the girls at the lavishly decked tea-table awaiting them on their return
from their momentous walk the day before, still held them. They all had
come in feeling a little apprehensive, and Fraulein behind her tea-urn
had met them with the fullest expansion of smiling indulgence Miriam had
yet seen. After tea she had suggested an evening's entertainment and had
permitted the English girls to act charades.

For Miriam it was an evening of pure delight. At the end of the first
charade, when the girls were standing at a loss in the dimly-lit hall,
she made a timid suggestion. It was enthusiastically welcomed and for
the rest of the evening she was allowed to take the lead. She found
herself making up scene after scene surrounded by eager faces. She
wondered whether her raised voice, as she disposed of proffered
suggestions--"no, that wouldn't be clear, _this_ is the thing we've
got to bring out"--could be heard by Fraulein sitting waiting with the
Germans under the lowered lights in the saal, and she felt Fraulein's
eye on her as she plunged from the hall into the dim schoolroom rapidly
arranging effects in the open space in front of the long table which had
been turned round and pushed alongside the windows.

Towards the end of the evening, dreaming alone in the schoolroom near
the closed door of the little room whence the scenes were lit, she felt
herself in a vast space. The ceilings and walls seemed to disappear. She
wanted a big scene, something quiet and serious--quite different from
the fussy little absurdities they had been rushing through all the
evening. A statue... one of the Germans. "You think of something this
time," she said, pushing the group of girls out into the hall.

Ulrica. She must manage to bring in Ulrica without giving her anything
to do. Just to have her to look at. The height of darkened room above
her rose to a sky. An animated discussion, led by Bertha Martin, was
going on in the hall.

They had chosen "beehive." It would be a catch. Fraulein was always
calling them her Bienenkorb and the girls would guess Bienenkorb and not
discover that they were meant to say the English word.

"The old things can't possibly get it. It'll be a lark, just for the
end," said Jimmie.

"No." Miriam announced radiantly. "They'd hate a sell. We'll have
Romeo."

"That'll be a