The girl gave a little cry of fright.

“Oh, I didn’t think it was so late.  I know Miss Brant will be very angry.  She will probably beat me.  I am still carrying the marks from the last whipping she gave me.  She sent me out on an errand, but I felt as though I must be alone, if only for a few minutes.  That’s why I stopped in the square.”

“Beat you!” exclaimed Grace.  “How dare she touch you?  Why, I never had a whipping in my life!  I won’t keep you another minute, but wait for me outside the campus when school is out to-morrow.  I wish to talk further with you.”

“I’ll come,” promised Mabel, her face lighting up.  Then she suddenly threw both arms around Grace’s neck and said, “I do love you, and I feel that some one cares about me at last.”  Then, like a flash, she darted across the square and was soon lost to Grace’s view.

“Well, of all things!” Grace remarked softly to herself.  “I think it’s high time we organized a sorority for the purpose of aiding girls in distress.”

“You’re a prompt person.  Did you really decide to come?” were the cries that greeted her from the porch as she opened the Bright’s gate.

“Save your caustic comments,” said Grace as she handed Jessica her hat.  “I have a tale to tell.”

“Out with it!” was the cry, and the girls surrounded Grace, who began with her meeting with David, and ended with the story of Mabel Allison.

“You haven’t heard anything of those boys yet, have you?” she asked when she had finished.

“Not yet,” said Nora, “but never fear, the night is yet young.”

“Where is Eleanor Savell?” asked Grace, noticing for the first time that Eleanor was not present.  “You promised to go for her, didn’t you, Anne?”

“I did go,” replied Anne, “but she wouldn’t come.  She said she’d come sometime when she felt like it.  She was playing on the violin when the maid let me in, and how she can play!  She wanted me to stay there with her and didn’t seem to understand why I couldn’t break my engagement with you girls.  She said that she always kept her engagements unless the spirit moved her to do something else.”

“Is Eleanor Savell the girl who comes into the study hall every morning after opening exercises have begun?” asked Marian Barber.

“Yes,” Grace answered.  “I forgot for a moment that you and Eva and Miriam hadn’t met her.  She is really very charming, although her ideas about punctuality and school rules are somewhat hazy as yet.  She lives at ‘Heartsease,’ Mrs. Gray’s property.  I am disappointed because she will not be here to-night.  She seemed delighted when I asked her to join our society.”

“As long as we know she isn’t coming, don’t you think we should begin the initiation?” asked Nora.  “It is after eight o’clock and we can’t stay out too late, you know.”

“Very well,” said Grace.  “Blindfold the candidates.”

The three girls meekly submitted to the blindfolding, and the chums were about to lead them to the initiation chamber, when the ringing of the door bell caused them to start.