Dorothy had freshened up little Celia’s garments as well as she could while the child slept. She was handier with the needle than Tavia, although the latter had greatly improved in domestic science since those early days when she first began to take pattern of Dorothy, back in Dalton.

“Those shoes aren’t fit for the child to wear,” grumbled Tavia, who was helping to dress Celia when the warning bell for supper rang.

“Come on! Hurry up!” commanded Dorothy. “We’re late now. Haven’t you got her shoes on yet?”

“Yes, ma’am! all but one,” responded Tavia.

“‘All but one!’ How many feet has the poor child got?” cried Dorothy. “You talk as though she were a centipede.”

“She wriggles as though she had a hundred legs,” panted Tavia. “Do be still, dearie—for a minute.”

“Celia’s full of wriggles,” declared Dorothy. “Now come. Aren’t you hungry, dear?”

161 “Oh-o-o! You jes’ bet I am!” exclaimed Celia, running to the door ahead of her friends.

“Nice bread and milk for little girls—and plenty of it,” promised Dorothy.

“Don’t they haf to save the milk here at this school?” asked Celia, wonderingly. “Sometimes I get a little skimmed milk; but Mrs. Hogan says it pays best to give it to the hens and pigs.”

“I suppose it does!” growled Tavia. “She can’t sell little girls when they are fattened.”

“Hush!” warned Dorothy, opening the door for the impatient Celia. “Now, wait and walk beside me—like a little lady.”

The other girls were eager to see and speak with the little runaway. Miss Olaine being absent from her station at the head of the senior table, the classmates of Dorothy and Tavia hardly ate, watching Celia and listening to her prattle.

“She just is the cutest little thing that ever happened!” murmured Cologne.

Dorothy had placed Celia between herself and Tavia, and the little girl sat upon a dictionary borrowed from the principal’s office. Celia had been neglected in many ways, one of which was in the niceties of etiquette. So Dorothy whispered to her to use her fork more frequently than she did a spoon, or her fingers—for there was something beside bread and milk for the little visitor.

“Ain’t that funny?” cried Celia, in her shrill162 voice. “I used to eat with my spoon, an’ now you tell me to eat with my fork, Dorothy; how old must I be ’fore I eat with my knife—say?”

The upper class had the fun of Celia at table; but afterward she was borne off to the gym., where the whole school could entertain her.

Tavia took charge. The girls got into their gym. suits and an up-to-the-minute circus was arranged for the visitor’s entertainment. There was “ground and lofty tumbling,” clown tricks, jumping through hoops, Ned Ebony in tights and tinsel to represent the usual lady “bare-back rider,” all the known ferocious beasts in chair-rung cages, with the labels displayed very prominently, including the “Gyrogustus” and the “Chrisomela-bypunktater”; and at last there was a splendid side show, with Cologne in a position of prominence as the $10,000 Fat Beauty, Molly Richards as an Albino Twin, Nita as the Tatooed Lady, well disguised with red, blue and green chalk, and Tavia herself as the Bearded Lady, with so much black fringe on her face that she could scarcely talk.

Celia entered into the spirit of all the fun, appeared scared into fits by the roaring of the lions and the fierce appearance of the other astonishing animals; laughed at the antics of the clowns, was thrilled by the acrobatics, and wasn’t quite sure that Nita’s “tattooing” would really come off if you rubbed it!

163 The nine o’clock bell sent all hands scattering to their rooms. Perhaps Mrs. Pangborn had been more lenient than usual this evening; at least, none of the other teachers had interfered with the hilarity of the school in general—and the strict Miss Olaine was shut away in her room.

But as Dorothy and Tavia, bearing the sleepy Celia in a “chair” between them, passed the door of Miss Olaine’s room, they saw Mrs. Pangborn come forth.

“Let me see your little friend, Dorothy,” she said, hastily, and the chums stopped to introduce Celia Moran to the principal.

“So this is Tom Moran’s little sister; is it?” Mrs. Pangborn said, patting the little girl’s cheek.

“Do—do you know my brother, Tom Moran, ma’am?” asked Celia, sleepily. “He’s big—an’ he’s got such red hair—and he builds bridges an’ things——”

She almost nodded off to sleep. Mrs. Pangborn kissed her. “I have heard a good deal about Tom Moran—this evening,” she said, and she looked significantly back at the door which she had just closed.

Tavia flashed a meaning look at Dorothy, and the moment the principal was out of the way, she whispered: “What did I tell you?”

“About what?” demanded Dorothy.

“About Miss Olaine and Tom Moran? She164 knows something about him and she has been telling Mrs. Pangborn.”

“Sh!” warned Dorothy. “If it was anything that might lead to his being found, she would have told me—surely.”

“Who?”

“Mother Pangborn.”

“Well, there’s something queer about it,” declared Tavia, nodding, “and Miss Olaine knows.”

They put Celia to bed in Number Nineteen and some time after Dorothy had put out the light and crept in beside the little girl—Tavia was already asleep in her own bed—Dorothy heard a sound outside of the door.

Somebody was creeping along the corridor. Was it some teacher on the watch for some infraction of the rules? Dorothy had heard nothing of a “spread-eagle” affair on this corridor to-night.

The step stopped. Was it at this door? For some moments Dorothy lay, covered to her ears, and listened.

Then to her surprise she knew that the door was open. It was the draft from the window that assured her of this fact. The door was opened wider and a tall figure, dimly visible because of the light in the hall, pushed into the room.

The lock clicked faintly as the knob was released by the marauder’s hand. Dorothy was half-frightened at first; then she knew there could be165 nobody about the building who would hur............