t of the affair. Before the next French
class she made a tour of the monitresses' bedrooms. They had
instituted an early-rising society among themselves this term, and
almost everyone was provided with an alarum-clock. Raymonde boldly
borrowed five of these, without asking leave of their owners, and set
them all carefully for 12.30, winding them up to their fullest extent.
She then placed them inside the book cupboard in the class-room, and
covered them with some sheets of exercise paper.

The lesson proceeded even more painfully than usual. Ardiune got
hopelessly mixed between indefinite pronouns and indefinite
pronominal adjectives, and Fauvette floundered over the negations,
while Muriel found the proper placing of the _p_'s and _l_'s in the
conjugation of _appeler_ an impossible problem. As 12.30 drew near,
there was much glancing at wrist-watches. Mademoiselle kept her eyes
persistently turned away from the clock, with the evident intention of
once more ignoring the time. This morning, however, Fate, in the
person of Raymonde, had been against her. Exactly at the half-hour
five alarums started punctually inside the cupboard, raising such a
din that it was impossible to hear a word. Mademoiselle flew to
investigate, took them out, shook them, and laid them on their backs,
but they were wound up to their fullest extent, and nothing short of a
hammer would have stopped them. The noise was terrific.

The baffled French governess, clapping her hands over her ears, raised
her eyebrows in a signal of dismissal, and the girls availed
themselves of the permission with record speed. The alarums burred
cheerily on for about twenty minutes, after which, by Mademoiselle's
instructions, they were replaced in the monitresses' bedrooms by
Hermie. The Fifth were prepared for trouble, but to their surprise no
notice was taken of the incident at head-quarters. Possibly
Mademoiselle was aware that her late efforts at discipline were
regarded by Miss Beasley with as little favour as her former
slackness, and considered it useless to appeal to her Principal. She
took the hint, however, and in future terminated the lesson punctually
at the half-hour, so on this occasion the girls considered that they
had most decidedly scored.

CHAPTER XIX

A Mysterious Happening

It was now nearly the end of July. The weather, which for many weeks
had been fine and warm, suddenly changed to a spell of cold and wet.
Rain dripped dismally f