"I'd just as soon it had been yours!" grumbled Cynthia. "I shan't like
sleeping in a puddle of oil!"

"If you grouse any more, I'll empty the can of peaches on your pillow,
so shut up!" commanded the mistress of the ceremonies. "A beano's a
beano, and we're going to enjoy ourselves."

"If we make too much noise, though----" suggested Maudie Heywood.

Ardiune snapped her up promptly.

"We'll make what noise we like! What does it matter? The monitresses
are locked out, and Mademoiselle will never hear. We've got the place
to ourselves to-night, thank goodness! Just for once, Mother Soup's
room down there is vacant!"

"Empty is the cradle, baby's gone!" mocked Morvyth.

"'Xpect she's having the time of her life at the dinner-party."

"Well, we'll have ours!"

A quarter of an hour later the dormitory presented a convivial scene.
An orchestra of five, seated on a hastily cleared dressing-table, were
performing music with combs, while the rest of the company waltzed
between the beds, with intervals of the fox-trot. Maudie Heywood and
Cynthia Greene had accepted the inevitable, and joined the multitude.
Apparently they were enjoying themselves. Maudie's cheeks were
scarlet, and Cynthia's long fair hair floated out picturesquely as she
twirled round in Elsie Moseley's arms.

"We're certainly making the most of our bubbling girlhood!" murmured
Raymonde with satisfaction. "The Bumble couldn't call us little
premature women to-night!"

The dark anti-zepp curtains swayed in the night breeze, and the
candles flared and guttered, the musicians tootled at their
tissue-paper covered combs with tingling lips, faster and faster
whirled the dancers, the fun was at its zenith, when quite suddenly
the unexpected happened. The door of Miss Gibbs's room opened, and
that grim lady herself stood on the threshold.

If a spectre had made its appearance in their midst, the girls could
not have been more disconcerted. A horrible hush spread over the room,
and for a moment everybody stared in frozen horror. The musicians
slipped down from the dressing-table and scuttled towards their own
beds.

"H'm! So this is how you are to be trusted!" remarked Miss Gibbs
tartly, advancing towards the scene of the beano, and hastily casting
an eye over the empty tins and crumby remains of the repast. "Move
this rubbish away, and push those beds back to their places. Now get
into bed, every one of you! Not a single sound more is to be heard
to-