"_Exactly_," declared Pat, solemnly. "Oh, _won't_ it be fun to see her open it? And she'll think, of course, that it comes from the black-and-white man."

"And we must each one of us pledge to keep our eyes open for the creature."

"Think of it, girls--if we could make Miss Gray happy again it would be something we could remember when we're old ladies. Mother told me once that things we do for other people to make them happy come back to us with interest."

In the English class, on the following day, four girls sat very demurely in the back row, their eyes riveted on their books. When presently there was a knock at the door (Gyp had timed carefully the arrival of the messenger), Pat Everett exclaimed, "my goodness" aloud, and Jerry dropped her book to the floor. But their agitation passed unnoticed; Miss Gray's attention was fixed upon the little square box that was brought to her.

Jerry had a moment of panic. She scribbled on the top of a page in her text-book: "What if she's angry?" To which Gyp replied: "If _your_ life was empty, wouldn't you jump at a crumb?"

Only for a moment was the machinelike precision of the English class broken. Miss Gray untied the cord, and peeped under the cover. The girls, watching from the back row, saw a pink flush sweep from her small nose to the roots of her hair, then fade, leaving her very white. Then:

"Please continue, Miss Chase."

When the class was dismissed even Gyp had not the courage to linger and watch Miss Gray open the box. "She might suspect you," Patricia had warned. But at recess she rushed to the girls, her eyes shining.

"_Jerry! Pat!_ She's _crazy_ about 'em! I went in after the third hour and pretended I was hunting for my book. The violets were sitting up on her desk and she had a few of them fastened in her old cameo pin--and she looked _different_--already! Let's keep up our good work! Let's swear that we'll leave no stone unturned to find the black-and-white man!"

CHAPTER XVI

FOR THE HONOR OF THE SCHOOL

"Oh, I'm _sick_ of winter! I wish I was a cannibal living on a tropical island eating cocoanuts."

"----Missionaries, you mean," laughed Isobel.

Virginia Cox threw her skates over her shoulder; Isobel, Dorrie Carr and herself were the last to leave the lake. The school grounds were deserted.

"Oh, look at the snowman someone's started," cried Ginny, as they walked through the grounds. "Say, this is spliffy snow to pack! Let's finish up the work of art." In her enthusiasm over her suggestion her ennui was forgotten. "I know, let's make him into a snowlady."

Ginny's fingers were clever. Her caricatures, almost always drawn in ridicule of the faculty or her fellow-classmates, were famous. If, in her make-up, she had had a kindlier spirit and a truer sense of the beautiful, she might have become a great artist or sculptor.

Now she worked feverishly, shaping a lifelike figure from the huge cakes of snow that the others brought to her. As she stood back to view her handiwork a naughty thought flashed into her mind.

"Girls--it's going to be Miss Gray! And mother's got a funny old lavender crocheted shawl like that thing Miss Gray wears when it's cold, that the moths won't even eat. And I can fix a hat like the dreadful chapeau of hers that came out of the ark. And glasses, too----"

Isobel and Dorrie laughed delightedly.

"How can you get them out here?"

"Oh, _I'll_ find a way!" Ginny always could! "Do you think that nose is pug enough?" She deftly packed it down on each side with a finger, then gave it a quick, upward touch. "Isn't that better?"

Her companions declared the likeness perfect--as far as snow could make it.

"And I can hunt up two blue glass allies for eyes." There was, plainly, no end to Ginny's resourcefulness. "You just wait and see what you'll see in the morning."

During the night King Winter maliciously abetted Ginny in her work, for a turn in his temper laid a sparkling crust over everything--and especially the little snowlady who waited, immovable, on a little rise of ground near the main entrance of the school.

The pupils, arriving at Highacres the next morning, rubbed their eyes in their amazement. Not one failed to recognize the English teacher in the funny, shawl-draped figure, with enormous glasses framing round blue eyes, shadowed by a hat that was almost an exact counterpart of the shabby one Miss Gray had hung each morning for the past three winters on her peg in the dressing-room. But there was something about the rakish tilt of the hat that was in such strange contrast to the severe spectacles and the thin, frosty nose, that it gave the snowlady the appearance of staggering and made her very funny.

All through the school session groups of pupils gathered at the windows, laughing. There was much speculating as to who had built the snowlady; the three little sub-freshmen who had begun the work Ginny had finished were vehement in their assertions that they had not. Gradually it was whispered about that Ginny Cox had done it.

"We might have known that," several laughed, thinking Ginny very clever.

Then, over those invisible currents of communication which convey news through a school faster than a flame can spread, came the rumor that trouble was brewing. One of the monitors had told Dorrie Carr that Miss Gray had had hysterics in the office; that, in the midst of them, she had written out her resignation and that, after the first period, not an English class had been held!

Another added the information that Barbara Lee had quieted Miss Gray with spirits of ammonia and that Dr. Caton had refused to accept her resignation and had been overheard to say that the culprit would be punished severely.

Ginny's prank began to assume serious proportions. Ginny was more thoughtless than unkind; it had not crossed her mind that she might offend little Miss Gray. But she was not brave, either--she had not the courage to go straight to Miss Gray and apologize for her careless, thoughtless act.

There had been, for a number of years, one well-established punishment at Lincoln; "privileges" were taken away from offenders, the term of the sentences depending upon the enormity of the offence. And "privileges"

included many things--sitting in the study-room, mingling with the other pupils in the lunch rooms at recess, sharing the school athletics. This system had all the good points of suspension with the added sting of having constantly to parade one's disgrace before the eyes of the whole school.

"If Ginny Cox is found out, she can't play in the game against the South High," was on more than one tongue.

Gyp, deeply impressed by the criticalness of the situation, summoned a meeting of the Ravens. Her face was very tragic.

"Girls--it's the chance for the Ravens to do something for the Lincoln School! We've had nothing but spreads and good times and now the opportunity has come to test our loyalty."

Not one of the unsuspecting Ravens guessed what Gyp had in mind!

"Ginny Cox did build that snowlady--Isobel saw her. But if she gives herself up she'll be sent to Siberia!"

"Well, it'll serve her right. She needn't have picked out poor little Miss Gray to make fun of."

Gyp frowned at the interruption. "Of course not. _We_ know all about Miss Gray and feel sorry for her, but Ginny doesn't. And, anyway, that isn't the point. I was talking about loyalty to Lincoln." Gyp made her tone very solemn. "Disgrace--everlasting, eternal, black disgrace threatens the very foundations of our dear school!" She paused, eloquently.

"Next week, Tuesday, our All-Lincoln girls' basketball team plays our deadly enemy, South High. And what will happen without Ginny Cox? Who _else_ can make the baskets she can? Defeat--ignominious defeat will be our sad lot----" Her voice trailed off in a wail that found its echo in every Raven's heart.

"I'd forgotten the game! _What_ a shame!"

"Why _couldn't_ Ginny have thought of that?"

"Maybe Doc. Caton will just let her play that once."

"Not he--he's like iron. Didn't he send Bob Morely down for three whole days just before the Thanksgiving game 'cause he got up in Caesar class and translated 'bout the 'Garlic Wars'?"

Gyp sensed the psychological moment to strike.

"Never before in the history of our secret order has such an opportunity to serve our school been given to us----"

"What can we do?"

"One of us can offer ourself on the altar of loyalty----"