eton
was all cut up about it, because Mrs. Selim, or Juanita Leigh, as she
was known on Broadway, had directed our Easter play the last two years,
and the reporters simply hounded us the first two days after she was
murdered out in Hamilton, where a number of our richest girls have come
from----"

"By Jove!" Dundee exclaimed. "Was the Selim woman connected with this
school, really?... I only read the headlines--never pay much attention
to murders in the papers--"

"I wish," Miss Earle interrupted tartly, fresh tears reddening her eyes,
"that people wouldn't persist in referring to her as 'that Selim
woman'.... When I think how sweet and friendly she was, how--how
_kind_!" and to Dundee's surprise she choked on tears before she could
go on: "Of course I know it's dreadful for the school, and I ought not
to talk about it, when you've come to see about putting your sister into
the school, but Nita was _my friend_, and it simply makes me _wild_----"

"You admired and liked her very much?" Dundee asked, forgetting his role
for the moment.

"Yes, I did! And Miss Pendleton liked her, too. And you can imagine how
clever and popular she was, when a wonderful woman like Mrs. Peter
Dunlap, who was Lois Morrow when she was in school here, admired her so
much she took her to Hamilton with her to direct plays for a Little
Theater.... Why, I never met anyone I was so congenial with!" the
secretary went on passionately. "The girls here snub me and make silly
jokes about me behind my back and call me nicknames, but Nita was just
as sweet to me as she was to anyone--even Miss Pendleton herself!"

"Were you with her much?" Dundee dared ask.

"_With her much?..._ I should say I was!" she asserted proudly. "I have
a room here, live here the year 'round, and both years Nita shared my
room, so she would not have to make the long trip back to New York every
night during the last week of rehearsals. We used to talk until two or
three o'clock in the morning--Say!" she broke off, in sudden terror.
"You aren't a reporter, are you?"

"A reporter? Good Lord, no!" Dundee denied, in all sincerity. Then he
made up his mind swiftly. This woman hated the school and all connected
with it, had grown more and more sour and envy-bitten every year of the
fifteen she had served here--and she liked Nita Leigh Selim better than
anyone she had ever met. The opportunity for direct questioning was too
miraculous to be ignored. So he changed his tone suddenl