d broke off abruptly.

Alice shrugged her shoulders.

"If--if----" she thought. "How I detest that word."

On the way back that afternoon the old Queen's girls held a council of
war.

"I think we ought to make it our business to find out who played this
trick on us," cried Margaret, "if it takes detective work to do it. Our
dignity as seniors has been attacked and the standards of Wellington
lowered."

"I don't believe any juniors had a hand in it," put in Judy, "because we
are so friendly with them."

Nance nudged Molly.

"She's afraid somebody's going to blame that charming Adele," she
whispered.

"If it's any of the Wellington girls, it's more likely to be among the
sophomores," announced Edith decisively. "They were rather a wild lot
last year but we were too busy to notice them; a good deal like a gang
of bad boys in their own set; always playing practical jokes----"

"Yes, but would they dare play jokes on us?" interrupted Margaret.

"They'd dare do anything," answered Edith. "Anne White is the
ringleader. I only know her by sight so I can't judge of her character,
but I heard that Miss Walker had her on the grill several times last
winter."

"What does she look like?" some one asked.

"Why, she's as demure as anything; a petite, brown-haired, inconspicuous
little person. You'd never suspect her of being so daring, but I happen
to know of one reckless performance of hers that Prexy hasn't heard of."

"Do tell," they demanded with breathless curiosity.

"You'll let it go no farther? Word of honor, now?"

"Word of honor," they repeated in a chorus.

"One night last spring she let herself down from the dormitory with a
rope ladder and went--well, I don't know where she went, but she got
back safely enough----"

"Up the ladder?"

"No. That was the wonderful part. She simply waited till morning and
when the gates were open slipped in in time for chapel."

The girls were rather horrified at this story.

"It's shocking," the chorus exclaimed.

"It does sound so," went on Edith impressively, "if I didn't happen to
know that she spent the night with good old Mrs. Murphy, who told it to
me herself one day in a burst of tea-cup confidence, and I never let it
out to any one but Katherine until to-day. But it does seem the moment
for telling it, if she did play that dastardly trick----"

"But we aren't sure it was Anne White," put in Molly.

"No, but it's her style. She sent a girl a live mouse th