"What on earth is the matter with the child?" asked Laura.

"Salt," Bess managed to articulate. "You gave me the salt, Rhoda, instead of the sugar. Oh, what a dose!"

The girls wanted to shout with laughter, but caution made them smother it as much as possible. And just at this juncture, the door opened part way without even one little warning squeak, and a severe voice said:

"Young ladies, report to me at my office at noon to-morrow."

CHAPTER XI

A DANGEROUS PLOT

The girls, their laughter quenched, gazed at each other for a few seconds with stupefaction. Then Nan sprang to the door, opened it, and caught sight of a silently scurrying figure that could not by any means be confounded with Mrs. Cupp's angular form or slow, measured movements.

The other girls, astonished, gazed at Nan open-mouthed as she re-entered the room with flushed and indignant face and uttered the one enlightening word:

"Linda."

"It sure was!"

"Of all the nerve!" began Laura slowly.

"Of all the meanness, I should say," amended Rhoda indignantly, as she turned the key in the door.

Then the funny side struck them, and they sat doubled up with suppressed laughter.

With increased hilarity the feast went on. The ice cream was brought in and found to be in a very creditable state of preservation, and the layer cake and small iced cakes were very soon being gobbled up.

To ill.u.s.trate that "variety is the spice of life," so she said, Laura had just followed some ice cream with a sour pickle, when a footstep neared the door and a stern voice commanded them to open it.

"Linda," whispered Grace to Bess, who was nearest her, while Laura said in a perfectly audible though subdued voice:

"You can just go about your business, you essence of meanness."

"You needn't think you can work that trick on us twice," added Grace.

"Don't judge our intellects by your own," scoffed Rhoda. "You must think we were born yesterday."

The girls laughed at the sally, and silence ensued for a moment.

"I guess that has disposed of Linda for the rest of the night," exulted Laura, and she applied herself again to the now rapidly melting ice cream.

"Let's finish this cream while the eating's good," laughed Nan, when her spoon was arrested on its way to her mouth by a voice outside the door.

"Nan Sherwood, I command you to open this door."

In overwhelming consternation the girls rose to their feet, and Nan unlocked and opened the door.

Quivering with anger and outraged dignity, Mrs. Cupp swept the room with flashing eyes.

"You will go to your rooms, young ladies, and you will all report at Dr.

Prescott's room to-morrow morning at ten o'clock," she decreed, and, turning, moved majestically down the corridor, leaving black consternation behind her.

"Now, we are in for it!" gasped Rhoda, as the sound of footsteps died away.

Too overwhelmed to say another word, the others slipped away to their rooms.

The next morning, with many inward quakings, they entered the princ.i.p.al's room. Dr. Prescott's voice was severe as she said to the five caught-in-the-act delinquents:

"You are ready to admit, I presume, that you have broken one of the rules of the school. That I can understand. But that you should have been guilty of disrespect to one of the officers of the school is quite another and more serious thing. Have you any explanation to offer?"

After a moment's silence, Nan acted as spokesman.

"We did not intend to be disrespectful to Mrs. Cupp," she declared, and then went on and told the whole story.

"That puts things in a better light," said Dr. Prescott, when Nan had finished. "But to make you more careful in future and to remind you that the rules of Lakeview Hall are made to be observed, not ignored, I will forbid you all to go outside the grounds for three full days. You can go now to your recitations."

The girls bowed and withdrew, and for the rest of the morning they were unusually quiet. At noon they gathered in Laura's room, dropped into the nearest chairs at hand, and looked at each other lugubriously.

"Three days without poking our noses outside the gates!" mourned Bess.

"How are we ever going to stand it?"

"I don't care much for that," commented Rhoda. "But I hate to give that Linda Riggs anything to gloat over."

"And she will," declared Grace. "She'll make the very most of it, you can be sure."

"She will."

"Oh, well, let her then," said Laura, recovering something of her usual spirits. "Say, girls, did you see the expression on Cupp's face when we opened the door?"

They burst into a merry laugh at the remembrance, and the laugh lessened the tension and did them good.

"Oh!" gasped Laura, as she wiped the tears from her eyes, "I shall remember that look when I'm an old woman."

"I suspect Cupp will remember the occasion, too, for many days to come,"

prophesied Nan.

"I wish there had been a gla.s.s opposite the door, so that she could have seen her face," remarked Bess, going off into another gale of laughter.

"Come on," said Rhoda, when they had settled down. "Let's go for a walk on the campus and get some fresh air. Thank goodness, we can do that, anyway."

"Oh, dear," sighed Nan, as they went downstairs. "No coasting, no skating for three days. What a fate!"

"No matter," comforted Grace. "The feast was worth it. The memory lingers."

"It does," agreed Laura. "I can taste that layer cake yet. But come, girls, I challenge you to a race around the campus. One, two, three--go!"