“We’ll go after lunch,” planned Betty.  “Miss Anderson says if we strike off toward the woods at the back of the school we ought to come to a grove of hickory nut trees.”

The eight girls, ready for their tramp, came in to lunch attired in heavy wool skirts and stout shoes and carried their sweaters.  Ada Nansen glanced complacently at her own suede pumps and silk stockings.

“It’s hard to tell which is really the farmer’s daughter to-day,” she drawled.  “Perhaps we all ought to assume that uniform out of kindness.”

Ada sat at the table directly behind Norma, and not a girl at either table could possibly miss the significance of her remarks.  Their import, it developed, had been plain to Miss Lacey who, on her way to her own table, had overheard.  Miss Lacey was a quiet, rather drab little woman, misleading in her effacement of self.  She knew more about her pupils than they often suspected.

“Ada,” she said quietly, stopping by the girl, “you may leave the table.  If you will persist in acting like a naughty little six year old girl, you must be treated as one.”

Ada flounced out of her chair and from the room.  Her departure created a ripple of curiosity.  It was most unusual for a girl to be dismissed from table, and had Ada only known it, she had drawn the attention of the whole school to herself.

Miss Lacey went on to her seat, without a glance at the flushed faces of Norma and Alice.

“Some day,” said Bobby furiously, “I’m going to throw a plate at that girl!”

“No, you’re not,” contradicted Betty.  “Then Mrs. Eustice would rise up and send you from the room and you’d feel about half the size Ada does now.  For mercy’s sake, don’t descend to anybody’s level—­make ’em come up to fight on yours.”

They were all glad to get through the meal and find themselves outdoors.  It was a perfect autumn day, warm and hazy, and the red and gold of the leaves showed burnished from the hillside.  They tramped rather silently at first, and then, as the tense mood wore off, their tongues were loosened and they chattered like magpies.

“Here’s a tree!” shouted Louise and Frances, who were in the lead.

When they had picked all the nuts on the ground, Bobby essayed to climb the tree.  She made rather sad work of the effort, for a shag-bark hickory is not the easiest tree in the world to climb, and after she had torn her skirt in two places and mended it with safety pins, she gave up the attempt.

“Let’s walk further,” she suggested.  “We’ll mark our trail as we go like the Indians.”

This idea caught the fancy of the girls, and they marked an elaborate trail, building little mounds at every turn and leaving odd arrangements of stones to mark their passing.

“Come on, I’ll race you,” shouted Bobby suddenly.  “I feel just like exercising.”

Betty wondered what she called the scramble through the woods, but she, too, was ready for a run.  They set off pellmell, laughing and shouting.