With a sigh Grace reached for the evening paper which lay on the library table. She glanced over the headlines without any special interest until a single sentence in large black type caused her to stare, then give voice to a surprised, "I knew it!" The headline read, "Larry, the Locksmith, Still at Large."

Grace sat down heavily in the nearest chair, the newspaper still clutched in one hand. She had not been mistaken. The man for whom the authorities were searching was the man she had seen in front of the moving picture theatre. It was evident that he had very little fear of being recognized in Overton, or he would not have risked appearing in the streets of the college town. "He must have friends here, who are sheltering him," sprang into her mind, "or he may be pa.s.sing through the town. The question is, ought I to make my discovery known to the police?"

"Here you are!" called a familiar voice, "I've been looking for you."

Patience Eliot entered the living room, and seated herself opposite Grace. "Do you remember my saying when you asked me to go to the theater that I had a faint recollection of having another engagement last night?"

Grace nodded.

"My faint recollection was perfectly correct. I had promised to go for a walk with Kathleen, and consequently she wouldn't speak to me when I came in last night. She wouldn't accept my humble apologies. Just when I thought I was making a little progress with her, too. I am the most unfortunate mortal," sighed Patience. "I know she imagines I did it purposely."

Patience's recital of her woes brought back the subject of Arline's displeasure to Grace's mind, and when, a little later, the two girls went upstairs arm in arm, the important question of whether or not to inform the Overton police of her discovery had slipped, for the time being, from Grace's mind.

CHAPTER IX

A THANKSGIVING INVITATION

"At last!" exclaimed Grace triumphantly, as she extracted a letter from the Wayne Hall bulletin board addressed to her in Mabel Ashe's unmistakable handwriting. "Oh, I am so glad! I thought she had forgotten me."

"Or had been persuaded to forget you," put in Elfreda Briggs, who had come downstairs to breakfast directly behind Grace.

Grace looked frankly amazed. "How did you know?"

"How do I find out everything I know?" demanded Elfreda. "Don't you suppose I noticed that you were worried about not hearing from Mabel? I could see you thought some one had made mischief."

"Elfreda Briggs, will you please tell me your exact method of deduction!" exclaimed Grace in a half vexed tone. "Your ability for 'seeing things' is positively uncanny."

"There was nothing very uncanny about seeing you look ready to cry every time Mabel's name was mentioned," retorted Elfreda. "We all knew that you hadn't received a letter from her. Put two and two together, what is the result? Ask me something harder. That's easy."

"I make my bow to you, most observing of all observers," laughed Grace.

"I have been worried over not receiving a letter from Mabel, but I hadn't breathed it to any one. Come into the living room before breakfast. No; let us have breakfast first. It is early yet and we shall have time to read the letter afterward in my room. Then Anne and Miriam can hear it, too. Here they come, the slow pokes."

"A dillar, a dollar, a ten-o'clock scholar, Oh, why did you come so soon?"

chanted Elfreda as Anne, followed by Miriam, appeared at the head of the stairs.

"A ten-minutes-to-eight-o'clock scholar," calmly corrected Miriam. "We are early, but you and Grace are distressingly early. I suppose you found the fabled worm."

"Here it is." Grace held up the letter. "If you are pleasant and respectful to us during breakfast, I will invite you to my room to hear it read."

"Your half of the room," reminded Anne, with emphasis.

"I beg your pardon, my half of the room," corrected Grace. "I might lease your half for the occasion, then I could turn you out if you proved a disturbing factor."

"But I could refuse to lease my half," declared Anne.

"Then I should be obliged to turn you out, at any rate. I am much stronger than you."

"It sounds like a discussion between the March Hare and the Mad Hatter, doesn't it?" commented Elfreda.

"It has a true Alice in Wonderland tang," agreed Miriam solemnly. "In the meantime I am growing hungrier. On to breakfast!"

After breakfast, the quartette lost no time in going upstairs to Grace's room to listen to Mabel's letter. Grace opened it, glanced hastily over the first page, then read:

"MY DEAR GRACE:--

"Your faith in me as a correspondent must be shattered by this time. I've intended to write, but my days and nights, too, have been so crowded with work that I have almost forgotten that I am ent.i.tled to a little recreation. I'll try not to let it happen again, Grace, dear. I hoped to be able to run down for Thanksgiving, but I am afraid it won't be possible.

"I am doing the clubs now, and there will be so much to write about them during Thanksgiving week that I am afraid I shall have to stay in town all week. Next week the opera begins, and, oh, joy! I am to help write it--along with my club duties. I went to almost every performance last year and loved them all. Why couldn't you girls make up a party and spend Thanksgiving with me? Isn't that a brilliant idea? I might succeed in getting a day off.

"You might ask Miss West to come with you. Last summer I asked her all about you but could get no particular information regarding you. I saw very little of her during the summer, as she was given a number of important a.s.signments and covered them splendidly. I am sorry to say she is not well liked among the other reporters. They say she is too hard and merciless and that she is terribly unfeeling. Of course, you would hardly see that side of her. I should imagine she must have quite a reputation at Overton by this time, she writes so well. Remember me to her when you see her and deliver my invitation.

"I must stop instantly or lose my train home. Let me hear from you about Thanksgiving. Love to you and Elfreda, Miriam and Anne.

"Yours, as ever,

"MABEL.

"P. S.--I saw Frances last week. She is engaged to be married. More about her when I see you."

"Doesn't it sound exactly as she talks?" smiled Anne.

"I like the Thanksgiving idea," declared Elfreda.

"Of course, we'll go," said Grace, looking questioningly at her friends.

"Of course," repeated Miriam. "But what of Miss West?"

"We might ask Patience to break the news to her," proposed Anne.

"She would be doubly angry with us and say we were afraid of her," said Elfreda. "I'll tell her if you want me to. Nothing she can say will injure my castiron feelings."

"Why not put off the evil day? It is still three weeks until Thanksgiving. We can give her two weeks' notice, as they do in theatrical companies," laughed Anne. "Something might happen in the meantime to make us her bosom friends."

Elfreda giggled derisively. "I'd like to see it happen, then. We could all pursue our favorite phantoms in peace for the rest of our senior year. She is the only disturber left. Mabel says she imagines Kathleen must have quite a reputation at Overton by this time. She has. There isn't a doubt of it."

"Elfreda, be good," admonished Grace, laughing a little.

"Be good, bad child, and let who will be naughty," paraphrased Elfreda in a piping, affected voice.

"That sounded exactly like Hippy, didn't it?" said Miriam.

Grace and Anne nodded.

"We ought to call her Hippy the Second," suggested Anne.