riendship with Mademoiselle. Veronica was so impressed
with the value of the crystal's information that she could not help
confiding the news, and bringing the impressionable Belgian to consult
the seer for herself.

Ardiune's visions of smoking ruins and rescued refugees left
Mademoiselle almost speechless. She in her turn felt impelled to seek
a confidante, and imparted the wonderful revelations to Miss Gibbs.

That worthy lady immediately set off for the cow-house. As she entered
there was a scuttling of juniors, who sought safety behind the
partition. Raymonde stared for a moment aghast, then whispered to
Ardiune: "Bluff it out!"

Miss Gibbs proceeded in an absolutely business-like manner. She
requested a consultation, and listened while the gipsy, decidedly
nervous, gave a rambling description of a dark gentleman and an Indian
temple.

"Thank you," she said at last. "I think it only fair to warn you that
you can be prosecuted and fined twenty-five pounds for telling
fortunes. I should like to know where you got that crystal! It's
remarkably like the ball of glass that was broken off my Venetian
vase. I missed it yesterday from my mantelpiece. By the by"--stooping
down suddenly, and pulling aside the handkerchief from Zara's swarthy
neck--"you are wearing a locket and chain that I know to be the
property of one of my pupils. It is my duty immediately to put you in
the hands of the police."

The game was up! The disconcerted gipsies rose from their alcove, and
came back from the psychic to the material world. It was a hard,
exacting, unsympathetic world as mirrored in Miss Gibbs's keen grey
eyes. She told them briefly to go and wash their faces and change
their attire, then to report themselves in the class-room, where she
would be at work correcting exercises.

"You can bring with you the money that you have collected over this
business," she added.

Half an hour later, two clean, tidy, but dejected pupils entered the
class-room, and placed the sum of thirteen and ninepence upon her
desk. Miss Gibbs counted it over scrupulously.

"Any girls who were foolish enough to give you this, deserve to lose
it," she remarked, "and I shall send it as a contribution to the Red
Cross Fund. You will each learn two pages of Curtis's _Historical
Notes_ by heart, and repeat them to me to-morrow after morning school.
I may mention that I consider it a great liberty for any girl to enter
my bedroom and remove ornaments from