The East Dormitory girls were asked to sit forward. ("The goats were divided from the sheep,” Helen said.) Then the houseless girls were allowed to “pitch camp,” as it were.

“It is just like camping out,” cried Belle Tingley.

“Only there’s no scratchy and smelly balsam for beds, and our clothes won’t get all stuck up with chewing gum,” said Lluella Fairfax.

“Chewing gum!  Hear the girl,” scoffed Ann Hicks.  “You mean spruce gum.”

“Isn’t that about the same?” demanded Lluella, with some spirit.  “You chew it, don’t you?”

“I don’t know.  I wouldn’t chew spruce gum unless it was first properly prepared.  I tried it once,” replied Ann, “and got my jaws so gummed up that I might as well have had the lockjaw.”

“It is according to what season you get the gum,” explained Helen.  “Now, see here, girls:  We ought to have a name for this camp.”

“Oh, oh!”

“Quite so!”

“’Why not?” were some of the responses to this suggestion.

“Let’s call it ‘Sweet Dreams,’” said one girl.  “That’s an awfully pretty name for a camp, I think.  We called ours that, last summer on the banks of the Vingie River.”

“Ya-as,” drawled Heavy.  “Over across from the soap factory.  I know the place.  ‘Sweet Dreams,’ indeed!  Ought to have called it ‘Sweet Smells,’”

“I think ‘Camp Loquacity’ will fit this camp better,” Ruth said bluntly.  “We all talk at once.  Goodness! how does one person ever get a sheet smooth on a bed?”

Helen came to help her, and just then Mrs. Tellingham herself appeared in the hall.

“I am glad to announce, girls,” she said, with some cheerfulness, “that the fire is under control.”

“Oh, goody!” cried Heavy.  “Can we go over there to sleep to-night?”

“No.  Nor for many other nights, if at all,” the preceptress said firmly.  “The West Dormitory is badly damaged.  Of course, no girl need expect to find much that belongs to her intact.  I am sorry.  What I can replace, I will.  We must be cheerful and thankful that no life was lost.”

“What did I tell you?” muttered the fleshy girl.  “Those firemen from Lumberton always save the cellar.”

“Now,” said Mrs. Tellingham, “the girls belonging in the East Dormitory will form and march to their rooms.  It is late enough.  We must all get quiet for the night.  The ruins will wait until morning to be looked at, so I must request you to go directly to bed.”

Somebody started singing—­and of course it was their favorite, “One Wide River,” that they sang, beginning with the very first verse.  The words of the last stanza floated back to the West Dormitory girls as the others marched across the campus: 

    “’Sweetbriars enter, ten by ten——­
        That River of Knowledge to cross! 
      They never know what happens then,
        With one wide river to cross! 
          One wide river! 
          One wide River of Knowledge! 
          One wide river! 
          One wide river to cross.’”