rough the mail
and she broke up one of the sophomore class meetings by putting
ticktacks on the window."

"How silly," ejaculated Mabel Hinton.

"But what was she doing down on the campus and what did Mrs. Murphy
think of being waked up at midnight?" asked Judy.

"It wasn't midnight. It was only a little before eleven and Anne told
Mrs. Murphy she had done it for a lark. She was awfully frightened and
Mrs. Murphy began by being shocked and ended by being kind-hearted. The
ladder had slipped down and she couldn't get up and she didn't know what
to do."

So it happened, that without meaning to be unjust, the seniors secretly
blamed Anne White for the pillaging of their lunch hampers. But there
was no evidence and they could only wait and be watchful, as Margaret
expressed it.

CHAPTER VI.

THE RETORT COURTEOUS.

Because of the happy ending of the Ramble the seniors made no secret of
the theft of the lunch hampers. If they had been obliged to go hungry,
they would probably have kept the entire story to themselves. Such is
human nature. When the story reached Miss Walker's ears, as most things
about Wellington did sooner or later, she sent for Margaret Wakefield
and got the history of the case from her in an exceedingly dramatic and
well connected form.

"And we had gone to no end of trouble, Miss Walker, and a good deal of
expense," Margaret finished. "Lots of us had had cakes and pickles and
things sent on from home."

Miss Walker smiled. She could have named the contents of those hampers
without any outside assistance.

"What none of us understands is where they took the hampers afterward.
They couldn't have brought them back to college without being found
out."

"No," answered the Principal, "that would have been impossible, of
course, and yet the hampers have managed to find their way back."
Shifting her chair from the table desk, she pointed underneath. "So, you
see," she continued, "that the sandwiches and pickles and stuffed eggs
and fudge may have found their way into college after all. Major Fern
discovered the hampers. They had been tossed into a ditch near his
place." Miss Walker sighed and frowned. "If the Exmoor boys were given
to this kind of thing, I might have suspected some of them. But the
standards at Exmoor are above such things as this," she indicated the
hampers with a gesture of mingled disgust and pain. "If only--only I
could bring my Wellington to that point. But every year