“Do you suppose he will, Carrie?” queried Rose, turning to her friend in sudden consternation.

Miss Archer flushed hotly.

“I—­don’t—­know,” she said, with a thoughtful pause between each word.  “I am sure I did not mean it to sound so.  The idea came to me to put it that way when I spoke of the ’commanding officer being held responsible.’  I’ll tear it up, if you say so, and go and tell him the whole story instead.”  And she held it up between the thumb and forefinger of both hands as if to suit the act to her words.

“No! no!” “Send it as it is!” “It’s all right!” “He’ll understand!” cried several voices; though one weak sister murmured, with a plaintive sigh:  “I’ll be glad when it’s all over.”

“This having to face a ‘court-martial’ was overlooked in planning the campaign, hey?” observed another, with a grimace.

“I don’t care!  It was fun to hear those teachers tugging at their doors for dear life, and I have it from an eyewitness, when Johnson cut Miss Craigis loose she keeled over in the most undignified manner!” laughed a pert young miss, who was one of the giddiest in the class.  “And, oh!” she went on, breathlessly, “did you see poor old Webb on the upper floor?  It was perfectly killing!  She had on that startling palm-leaf kimono—­her false front had slipped down over one ear; she had her precious herbarium under one arm, her bird cage in one hand, and a huge hatbox in the other.  She was frightened nearly out of her senses, and demanded, right and left, ’Young ladies, where is the fire? oh, where is the fire?’”

A merry shout greeted this graphic description, and it is to be feared that some of the delinquents were not as deeply impressed with the enormity of their recent insubordination as could have been desired.

“Sh! sh! do hush, girls!” cried Miss Archer, waving her paper to enjoin silence, “This will have to be nicely copied in ink, and you’ll all have to sign it again.  And let me warn you,” she added, soberly, “you’d better keep pretty mum about last night, or we will get a bigger pill than will be comfortable to swallow.”

She seated herself at the table again and made a neat copy of her document, after which the signatures were carefully appended, then the meeting was dismissed, and the “captain” of the disorderly sophomores went directly to Prof.  Seabrook’s study.

It was very nearly supper time, and she had reasoned that he would issue an order, at the table, for the class to meet him in one of the recitation rooms, in the near future, to give the guilty ones an opportunity for confession; and her plan was to forestall this summons with the paper she had prepared.

When, in response to her knock, he bade her “come in,” it must be confessed that she opened the door with fear and trembling; while something in her bearing and the tense lines of her face at once aroused a suspicion of the nature of her errand in the principal’s mind.