rry on
her usually smooth forehead, and a grieved look in her grey eyes.

"It is very distressing to me to be obliged to make this enquiry," she
began, "but it is absolutely necessary that we find out what has
become of those missing notes. I put you all on your honour to tell me
what you know. Can any girl throw any light on the matter?"

She looked anxiously and wistfully round the little circle, but nobody
replied. Raymonde sat with downcast eyes, and the old obstinate
expression on her face. The eyes of all the other girls were focused
upon her.

"I am most loath to accuse anyone of such a dreadful thing as taking
money," continued Miss Beasley, "but unless you can offer me some
explanation, Raymonde, I shall be obliged to send you home. The facts
look very black against you. You were treasurer, and cannot produce
the funds; you were seen buying a postal order, and you received a
handsome fountain pen by post."

"If you please, Miss Beasley," interposed Veronica, "how could
Raymonde be buying a postal order when Hermie and I saw her practising
here?"

"It is most puzzling, I allow; but both Mrs. Sims the postmistress,
and Mrs. West, who happened to be buying groceries in the shop, agree
emphatically that it was Raymonde who came to the counter. They say
that she was not in school uniform, but wore a green dress and a small
cap."

"Raymonde has no green dress!"

"But she has admitted to me that she bought the postal order."

The girls looked at their chum in consternation. Raymonde buried her
face in her hands.

At this critical juncture there was the sound of a scrimmage outside
in the passage, and a loud excited voice was heard proclaiming:

"I will go in! I tell you I've come to see Miss Raymonde Armitage, and
it's important. Miss Beasley there? All the better! I want to speak to
her too. Will you kindly move out and let me pass? Oh, very well
then--there!"

The door opened with a forcible jerk, and a stranger entered
unceremoniously. She was a damsel of perhaps fifteen, slim, and very
pretty, with twinkling brown eyes and curly hair and coral cheeks. She
wore an artistic dress of myrtle-green Liberty serge, with a
picturesque muslin collar, and had a chain of Venetian beads round her
white throat.

The school gazed at her spellbound, almost aghast.

"The ghost-girl!" murmured Veronica faintly sinking into a chair.

"Violet!" exclaimed Raymonde in tones of ecstasy.

"Yes, here I am, right enou