er every day, and the tennis
courts were in quite fair condition. It was Maudie's habit to take a
pensive stroll among the box-edged flower beds in the courtyard, and
then repair to the class-room again to touch up her exercises. On this
particular evening Raymonde, with a contingent of the Mystic Seven,
lingered behind.

"We've just about ten minutes," she announced. "Old Maudie's as
punctual as a clock. She'll walk five times round the sundial and
twice to the gate."

"That girl's destined for the cloister," said Aveline pityingly.
"She's evidently thirsting to live her life by rule. Mark my words,
she'll eventually take the veil."

"No, she'll pass triumphantly through College and come out equal to a
double-first or Senior Wrangler, or something swanky of that kind, and
get made head mistress of a high school," prognosticated Ardiune.

"In the meantime, she won't swat any more to-night!" grinned Raymonde.
"Wait for me here, girls; I've got to fetch something."

Raymonde performed her errand with lightning speed. She returned with
a lump of soft substance in one hand, and a spirit-lamp and
curling-tongs in the other. Her chums looked mystified.

"Cobblers' wax!" she explained airily. "Brought some with me, in case
of emergency. It's useful stuff. And I just looted Linda Mottram's
curling apparatus from her bedroom. Don't you twig? What blind bats
you are! I'm going to stick up Maudie's desk!"

Raymonde lighted the spirit-lamp and heated the tongs, then spreading
a thick coating of the wax along the inside edge of the desk, she
applied the hot iron to melt it, and put down the lid.

"It will have hardened by the time Maudie has finished her
constitutional among the flower beds," she giggled. "I'll guarantee
when she comes back she won't be able to open her desk."

"It's only right for her to feel the pressure of public opinion,"
decreed Ardiune. "We're working in a good cause."

"But we're modest about it, and don't want to push ourselves forward,"
urged Raymonde. "I vote we go for a stroll down to the very bottom of
the orchard, near the moat."

A quarter of an hour later, Miss Beasley and Miss Gibbs were sitting
together in the Principal's study enjoying a well-earned period of
repose and a chat. Their conversation turned upon the varied
dispositions of their pupils.

"Maudie Heywood strikes me as a very earnest character," observed Miss
Beasley, toying with the violets in her belt. "Her work is really