19— was having its hoop-rolling. This is the way a senior hoop-rolling is managed: custom decrees that it may take place on any afternoon of senior week, which is the week before commencement when the seniors’ work is over though the rest of the classes are still toiling over their June exams. Some morning a senior who feels particularly young and frolicsome suggests to her friends at chapel that, as the time-honored official notice puts it,

“The day has come, the seniors said,
To have our little fling.
Let’s buy our hoops and roll them round,
And laugh and dance and sing.”

If her friends also feel frolicsome they pass the word along, and unless some last year’s girls have bequeathed them hoops, they hurry down-town to buy them of the Harding dealer who always keeps a stock on hand for these annual emergencies. The seniors dress for luncheon in “little girl” fashion, skirts up and hair down, and the minute the meal is over they rush out into the sunshine to roll hoop, skip rope, swing in the long-suffering hammocks under the apple trees, and romp to their hearts’ content. Freshmen hurrying by to their Livy exam, turn green with envy, and sophomores and juniors “cramming” history and logic indoors lean out of their windows to laugh and applaud, finally come down to watch the fun for “just a minute,” and forget to go back at all.

19— had its hoop-rolling the very first day of senior week. As Madeline Ayres said when she proposed it, you couldn’t tell what might turn up, in the way of either fun or weather, for the other days, so it was best to lose no time. And such a gay and festive hoop-rolling as it was! First they had a hoop-rolling parade through the campus, and then some hoop-rolling contests for which the prizes were bunches of daisies, “presented with acknowledgments to Miss Raymond,” Emily Davis explained. When they were tired of hoops they ran races. When they were out of breath with running they played “drop the handkerchief” and “London Bridge.” After that they serenaded a few of their favorite faculty. Then they had a reformed spelling-match, to prove how antiquated their recently finished education had already become.

Finally they sat down in a big circle on the grass and had “stunts.” Babbie recited “Mary had a little lamb,” for possibly the thousandth time since she had learned to do it early in her junior year. Emily Davis delivered her famous temperance lecture. Madeline sang her French songs, Jane Drew did her ever-popular “hen-act,” and Nancy Simmons gave “Home, Sweet Home,” as sung into a phonograph by Madame Patti on her tenth farewell tour.

Most of these accomplishments dated back as far as 19— itself, and half the girls who heard them knew them by heart, but they listened to each one in breathless silence and greeted its conclusion with prolonged and vigorous applause. It was queer, Alice Waite said, but some way you never, never got tired of seeing the same old stunts.

When the long list of 19—’s favorites was finally exhausted and Emily Davis had positively refused to give the temperance lecture for a third time, the big circle broke up into a multitude of little ones. Bob Parker and a few other indefatigable spirits went back to skipping rope; the hammocks filled with exclusive twos and threes; larger coteries sat on the grass or locked arms and strolled slowly up and down the broad path that skirted the apple-orchard.

Betty, Helen and Madeline were among the strollers.

“One more of the famous last things over,” said Madeline with a regretful little sigh. “I’m glad we had it before the alums, and the families begin to arrive and muddle everything up.”

“Did I tell you that Dorothy King is coming after all?” asked Betty, who, in a short white sailor suit, with her curls flying and her hoop clutched affectionately in one hand, looked at least eight years too young to be a senior, and supremely happy.

“Has she told you, Helen?” repeated Madeline dramatically. “She tells me over again every time I see her. When is Mary Brooks scheduled to arrive?”

“Thursday,” answered Betty, “so that she can see the play all three times.”

“Not to mention seeing Dr. Hinsdale between the acts,” suggested Madeline. “What do you two say to a picnic to-morrow?”

Helen said, “How perfectly lovely!” and Betty decided that if Helen and Madeline would come to the gym in the morning and help with the last batch of costumes for the mob, she could get off by three o’clock in the afternoon.

“That reminds me,” she added, “that I promised Nerissa to ask Eleanor if she has any shoes to match her blue dress. The ones we ordered aren’t right at all by gas-light.”

“There’s Eleanor just going over to the Hilton,” said Helen.

“Find out if she can go to the picnic,” called Madeline, as Betty hurried off, shouting and waving her hoop. “We’ll be asking the others.”

“El-ea-nor!” cried Betty shrilly, making frantic gestures with her hoop. But though Eleanor turned and looked back at the gay pageant under the trees, she couldn’t single out any one figure among so many, and after an instant’s hesitation she went on up the Hilton House steps.

So Betty stepped across the campus alone, and being quite out of breath by the time she got indoors went slowly up-stairs and down the long hall to Eleanor’s room. The house was very still—evidently its inmates were all out watching the hoop-rolling. Betty found herself walking softly, in sympathy with the almost oppressive silence. Eleanor’s door was ajar, so that Betty’s knock pushed it further open.

“May I come in?” she asked, hearing Eleanor, as she supposed, moving about inside. Without waiting for an answer she walked straight in and came face to face with—not Eleanor, but Miss Harrison, champion Blunderbuss of 19—.

“Why, what are you doing here?” she asked, her voice sharp with amazement. “I beg your pardon,” she added laughingly, “but I thought of course it was Eleanor Watson. She came into the house just ahead of me.”

“She hasn’t been in here yet,” said the Blunderbuss. She had been standing when Betty first caught sight of her. Now she dropped hastily into a chair by the window. “I was sure she’d be back soon and I wanted to speak to her for a minute. But I guess I won’t wait any longer. I shall be late to dinner.”

“Why, no, you won’t,” said Betty quickly. “It isn’t anywhere near dinner-time yet.” She didn’t care about talking to the Blunderbuss while she waited for Eleanor, but she had a great curiosity to know what the girl could want with Eleanor. “And I don’t believe Eleanor will have any more idea than I have,” she thought.

But the Blunderbuss rose nervously. “Well, anyway, I can’t wait,” she said. “I guess it’s later than you think. Good-bye.”

Just at that minute, however, somebody came swiftly down the hall. It was Eleanor Watson, carrying a great bunch of pink roses.

“Oh, Betty dear,” she cried, not noticing the Blunderbuss, who had stepped behind a Japanese screen, “see what daddy sent me. Wasn’t it nice of him? Why, Miss Harrison, I didn’t see you.” Eleanor dropped her roses on a table and came forward, looking in perplexity first at Miss Harrison and then around the room. “Betty,” she went on quickly, “have you been hunting for something? I surely didn’t leave my bureau drawers open like this.”

Betty’s glance followed Eleanor’s to the two drawers in the chiffonier and one in the dressing table which were tilted wide open, their contents looked as if some one had stirred them up with a big spoon. She had been too much engrossed by her encounter with Miss Harrison to notice any such details before.

“No, of course I haven’t been hunting for anything,” she answered quickly. “I shouldn’t think of doing such a thing when you were away.”

“I shouldn’t have minded a bit.” Eleanor turned back to Miss Harrison. “Did you want to see me,” she asked, “or did you only come up with Betty?”

The Blunderbuss wet her lips nervously. “I—I wanted to ask you about something, but it doesn’t matter. I’ll see you some other time. You’ll want to talk to Miss Wales now.”

She had almost reached the door, when, to Eleanor’s further astonishment, Betty darted after her and caught her by the sleeve. “Miss Harrison,” she said, while the Blunderbuss stared at her angrily, “I’m in no hurry at all. I can wait as well as not, or if you want to see Eleanor alone I will go out. But I think that you owe it to Eleanor and to yourself too to say why you are here.”

The Blunderbuss looked defiantly from Betty’s determined face to Eleanor’s puzzled one. “I didn’t know it was Miss Watson’s room until you came in and asked for her,” she vouchsafed at last.

“You didn’t know it was her room?” repeated Betty coldly. “Why didn’t you tell me that long ago? Whose room did you think you were in?”

“I thought—I didn’t know whose it was.”

“Then,” said Betty deliberately, “if you admit that you were in here without knowing who occupied the room you must excuse me if I ask you whether or not you were looking through Eleanor’s bureau drawers just before I came in.”

There was a strained silence.

“You can have all the things back,” said the Blunderbuss at last, as coolly as if she were speaking of returning a borrowed umbrella; and out of the pockets of the child’s apron which she still wore she pulled a gold chain and a bracelet and held them out to Eleanor. “I don’t want them,” she said when neither of the others spoke. “I don’t know why I took them. It just came over me that while all the others were out there playing it would be a good chance for me to go and look at their pretty things.”

“And to steal the ones you liked best,” added Betty scornfully.

The Blunderbuss gave her a vaguely troubled look. “I didn’t think of it that way. Anyway it’s all right now. Haven’t I given them right back?”

“Suppose we hadn’t come in and found you here,” put in Eleanor. “Wouldn’t you have taken them away?”

“I—I presume so,” said the Blunderbuss.

“So you are the person who has been stealing jewelry from the campus houses all through this year.” Betty’s voice grew harder as she remembered the injustice she had so nearly done Georgia and Miss Harrison’s self-righteous attack on Eleanor in that dreadful class-meeting.

The Blunderbuss accepted the statement without comment. “They could have had the things back if they’d asked for them,” she said. “I couldn’t very well give them back if they didn’t ask.”

“Will you give them back now?” asked Betty, astonishment at the girl’s strange behavior gaining on her indignation.

The Blunderbuss nodded vigorously. “Certainly I will. I’ll bring them all here to-night. I don’t want them for anything. I never wanted them. I’m sure I don’t know why I took them. Oh, there’s just one thing,” she added hastily, “that I can’t bring. It isn’t with the rest. But I’ve got everything else all safe and I’ll come right after dinner. Good-bye.”

The girls watched her go in a daze of bewilderment. Just outside the door she evidently bumped into some one, and her clattering laugh and loud, “Goodness, how you scared me!” sounded as light-hearted and unconcerned as possible.

“How did you ever guess that she was the one?” Eleanor asked at last.

“It just came over me,” Betty answered. “But, why, she doesn’t seem to care one bit!”

“About running into me?” asked Jean Eastman, appearing suddenly in the doorway. “Has she been doing damage in here, too?” No one answered and Jean gave a quick look about the room, noticing the rummaged drawers, the girls’ excited, tragic faces, and the jewelry that Eleanor still had in her hand. Then she made one of her haphazard deductions, whose accuracy was the terror of her enemies and the admiration of her followers.

“Oh, I see—it’s more college robber. So our dear Blunderbuss is the thief. I congratulate you, Eleanor, on the beautiful poetic justice of your having been the one to catch her.”

“Yes, she’s the thief,” said Betty, before Eleanor could answer. She had a sudden inspiration that the best way to treat Jean, now that she guessed so much, was to trust her with everything. “And she acts so strangely—she doesn’t seem to realize what she has done, and she doesn’t care a bit that we know it. She said——” And between them they gave Jean a full account of their interview with Miss Harrison.

Jean listened attentively. “It’s a pathetic case, isn’t it?” she said at last, with no trace of her mocking manner. “I wonder if she isn’t a kleptomaniac.”

Betty and Eleanor both looked puzzled and Jean explained the long word. “It means a person who has an irresistible desire to steal one particular kind of thing, not to use, but just for the sake of taking them, apparently. I heard of a woman once who stole napkins and piled them up in a closet in her house. It’s a sort of insanity or very nearly that. Of course jewelry is different from napkins, but Miss Harrison has taken so much more than she can use——”

“Especially so many pearl pins,” put in Betty, eagerly. “Haven’t you noticed what a lot of those have been lost? She couldn’t possibly wear them all.”

“Perhaps she meant to sell them,” suggested Eleanor.

“But her family are very wealthy,” objected Jean. “They spend their summers where Kate does, and she says that they give this girl everything she wants. She never took money either, even when it was lying out in plain sight, and her being so ready to give back the things seems to show that she didn’t take them for any special purpose.”

“Then if she’s a——” began Betty.

“Kleptomaniac,” supplied Jean.

“She isn’t exactly a thief, is she?”

“No, I suppose not,” said Jean doubtfully.

“But she isn’t a very safe person to have around,” said Eleanor.

“I’ll tell you what,” said Betty, who had only been awaiting a favorable opening to make her suggestion. “It’s too big a question for us to try to settle, isn’t it, girls? Let’s go and tell Miss Ferris all that we’ve found out so far, and leave the whole matter in her hands.”

Then Jean justified the confidence that Betty had shown in her. “You couldn’t do anything better,” she said, rising to leave.

“I wish I’d known her well enough to talk things over with her,—not public things like this, I mean, but private ones. Betty, here’s a note that Christy Mason asked me to give you. That’s what I came in for, originally. Of course this affair of Miss Harrison is yours, not mine, and I shan’t mention it again, unless Miss Ferris decides to make it public, as I don’t believe she will. By the way, I wonder if you know that Miss Harrison can’t graduate with us.”

“You mean that she has been caught stealing before?” asked Eleanor.

“Oh, no, but she couldn’t make up the French that she flunked at midyears, and she must be behind in other subjects, too. I heard rumors about her having been dropped, and last week I saw the proof of our commencement program. Her name isn’t on the diploma list.”

“Oh, I believe I’m almost glad of that,” said Betty softly. “It’s dreadful to be glad that she has failed in every way, but I can’t bear to think that she belongs in our class.”

So it was Miss Ferris who met the Blunderbuss in Eleanor’s room that night, who managed the return of the stolen property to its owners, with a suggestion that it would be a favor to the whole college not to say much about its recovery, and she who, finding suddenly that the noise of the campus tired her, spent the rest of the term at Miss Harrison’s boarding place on Main Street, where she could watch over the poor girl and minimize the risk of her indulging her fatal mania again while she was at Harding. She was nonchalant over having been caught stealing, but her failure in scholarship had almost broken her heart. She had worked so hard and so patiently up to the very last minute in the hope of winning her diploma that, on the very morning of the hoop-rolling, she had been granted the privilege of staying on through commencement festivities and so keeping her loss of standing as much as possible to herself. After listening to Betty’s and Eleanor’s stories and talking to Miss Harrison herself, Miss Ferris was fully convinced that the Blunderbuss was not morally responsible for the thefts she had committed, and so she was unwilling to send her home at once and thus expose her to the double disgrace that her going just then would probably have involved. So she found her hands very full until the girl’s mother could be sent for and the sad story broken to her as gently as possible.

It was the one unrelieved tragedy in 19—’s history; there seemed to be absolutely no help for it,—the kindest thing to do was to forget it as soon as possible.