gh!" announced the stranger. "Cycled over
directly I read your letter. Stars and stripes! You've got yourself
into a jolly old mess! Hope they haven't tortured you yet! I suppose
they still use the rack and the thumbscrew in this benighted country?
Cheero! We'll pull you through somehow!"

Then, catching the Principal's amazed and outraged expression, she
continued: "Sorry! Are you Miss Beasley? I ought to have introduced
myself. I do apologize! My name's Violet Chalmers, and I'm an
American."

She proclaimed the fact proudly, though her soft r in "American," and
slightly nasal intonation, would have established her nationality
anyway.

"May I ask your errand?" said the head mistress rather stiffly.

"Certainly. I've come to help Raymonde out of a scrape. I never
dreamed she'd be landed in such a queer business as this. I say, Ray,
will you explain, or shall I do the talking?"

"You, please!" entreated Raymonde.

"Well, as I've just said, I'm an American. We crossed the herring-pond
just before the war started, and we've been stuck in this old country
ever since. Before you all came to the Grange we rented the place for
a year, and a time we had of it, too, with rats and bats, and burst
pipes, and no central heating or electric light! Mother went almost
crazy! Well, last Easter, when I was staying at the seaside, I met
Raymonde, and we chummed no end. She told me that her school was
moving in here, and I bet her a big box of Broad Street pop-corns I'd
turn up some time in the house and astonish the girls. I only
bargained that she wasn't to let any of them know beforehand of my
existence. Well, I guess I kept my word. I joined in a game of
hide-and-seek one dark afternoon, and I reckon I passed off as a
first-class ghost. Didn't I chuckle, just! You wonder how I got in
without anybody seeing me? Why, I'd discovered the secret passage that
leads, from a sliding panel in the attic, right under the moat into a
cave inside the wood."

"Joyce Ferrers' passage!" exclaimed the girls.

"The very same. I rode over on my bicycle--we're staying only eight
miles away--left it inside the cave, lighted my lamp, and strolled up
to the attic as easily as you please. There was the whole school
tearing around like mad, so I scuttled round too, and scared you just
some! It was so prime, I guessed I'd try it on again. That was
yesterday week. I'd luck enough to catch Raymonde, and she was a sport
that day too. We changed clothes