the other girls down-stairs and through
the narrow passage that connected the two buildings, a passage known as
the subway--or sub.

"Mercy, isn't this spooky?" Carita said, taking a better hold on Blue
Bonnet's arm.

"Oh, this isn't anything? Wait a minute."

Mary Boyd drew the girls over to a door at one side of the gymnasium and
flung it wide.

"That's a part of the furnace room," she said. "You can go through here
and follow another little dark hall--oh, much worse than this--and it
takes you to the kitchen and pantries. We went down one night last
year--"

"One night?"

Carita shuddered.

"Yes, it was loads of fun. There were five or six of us. We ate enough
apple sauce and fresh bread to kill us."

At the piano in the gymnasium a girl was playing a two-step.

"Let's sit here and talk," Blue Bonnet said to Carita, drawing her to a
secluded corner. "I feel as if I had hardly seen you."

Sue Hemphill passed, and, seeing Blue Bonnet, dropped into a seat beside
her.

"Well," she said, "how do you girls like it by this time?"

"The school, you mean?" Blue Bonnet asked.

"Yes."

"It's been rather strenuous to-day. I'm beginning to look forward to
bedtime. I'm tired."

"It is tiresome--getting adjusted."

"What do we do after this half hour? It's a regular merry-go-round,
isn't it? A continuous performance."

Sue laughed.

"We study the next hour. Sometimes--twice a week--we have a short
lecture on general culture. You'll be taught how to enter a room
properly, and how to leave it--"

"I know that already."

"Of course, but it has to be impressed."

"Then what?"

"Then we go to our rooms. Sometimes we settle down, and sometimes we
don't. It depends. Once in a while we have a feast. We'll invite you
next time."

Blue Bonnet looked interested.

"Where do you have it?"

"Oh, in our rooms sometimes--but it's risky. The sky parlor is the best
place. That's up in the attic--under the eaves. It's fine! There's no
teacher to bother. It's a little cold just now. They don't heat it, but
you can put on your bath-robe and be comfy. We're waiting now for Wee
Watts to get her clean clothes back from home. You see, she only lives
an hour or two out of the city, and she sends her things home to be
washed. When they come back, her mother always fills up the suitcase
with cakes and cookies and jam--well, not jam, any more. The last jar
she sent, broke, and spilled all over a new silk waist she was sendi