A whole week had passed, when, one evening, there was noticeably a great hurry among the girls to finish supper. Whispering was more popular than dessert, and glances were being shot like hot fire from one to another of those near enough to interpret them.

“Oh, she won’t go,” Tavia told Ned. “Better not tell her anything about it, or we won’t get there either.”

“But she has been so blue——”

“Ned,” interrupted Tavia, “if you are going to be on my staff do not argue. I cannot stand insubordination.”

“That means that you are going to get me into more trouble, Tavia,” Edna got a chance to say. “Really I don’t like the thing at all.”

“Miss it then,” replied Tavia tersely. “But it’s a chance of a lifetime.”

“And Dorothy not to know——”

“I tell you that would spoil it all. You know Dorothy’s idea of a thing like that. Now I’m going upstairs. The ‘T’s’ are making eyes at one another, until there is danger of eye-lock and that’s as bad as lock-jaw. Be sure to leave as soon as you seen Jean look at her watch. I’ll be there.”

It was almost dark, and against the rules for the girls to leave the grounds at that time, but, in spite of that, a shuffling of feet down the outside stairway told of a venture unusual.

Not a word was spoken until some of the girls had safely passed outside the gate.

“Oh, I’m just scared to death,” breathed one.

“Nothing to be afraid of,” came in Jean’s voice. “If you don’t want the fun you may go back.”

“Oh! what was that?” exclaimed another. “I saw something dart across the street!”

“Rabbits,” replied the girl in the raincoat.

“Don’t you suppose she will ever tell?” asked Cecilia Reynolds.

“And lose her trade? It isn’t likely,” and they scurried along.

“How do you know she’s good?” asked one as she stumbled over a string of bushes.

“She has a crystal ball,” said Jean. “They are all good!”

“We’ll be good if we get back before study hour is over. It’s all right though, when Dorothy Dale did not get to hear of it. I’m just crazy to know something.” “We all are—you goose. That’s why we are risking our reports.”

A few minutes later the girls were crowded into a dingy little room where Madame Shebad had arranged to tell their fortunes.

It was, of course, Jean’s idea, for Glenwood was rather dull for a girl who had been accustomed to the city life that Jean Faval left to “finish up” at a fashionable school. Only a musty curtain divided the parts of the fortune teller’s cabin, and, one at a time of course, the girls were to go behind this and get dizzy, gazing into the big, glass ball, made in an Ohio glass factory, but supposed to come from some other mysterious place, not on the maps of this good government.

“You go first,” begged a girl who was really first in line.

“Come in proper turns, please,” said a voice from inside the curtain, and the timid one started.

“Let me have your hand,” commanded the same, lazy voice.

The hand trembled visibly, and the fortune teller was clever enough to say that the girl had a very nervous temperament!

“But you are talented,” she added shrewdly, “and you will get on in life. I see you on a ship—you are going on a long journey, and when you return you will be strong and well.”

So she went on, while Tillie (for it was she) shook more every moment, not alone because of the strained position she sat in, with her hand in that of the woman’s, and her eyes glued to the ball, but because she was worrying about getting back to school.

Several other girls went through the same sing-song fortune telling with the slight variations of letters coming, and light and dark friends of different grades and different shades.

Then it was Cecilia Reynolds’ turn.

“You are a leader,” the fortune teller told Cissy, noting that she carried a small purse, “but beware of a very light and pretty girl (Dorothy, of course). She has a way of making people think she is fond of them, but this is all for her own ends. I see——” and she paused significantly, “a child—a little dark girl. She cries! What is the matter with her? What has she done?”

Zada! Those who listened back of the curtains were dumbfounded.

“She has done something she regrets very much, and she wants to tell this light girl. Her home is far away, and she will soon return to it. Who told her to do that thing?”

The woman gave this chance to take effect, and, while doing so, took a fresh stick of gum. Cecilia looked on the glass. The woman came back to it, and almost kissed it, as she pretended to look deeper into its depths.

“Yes, and there is trouble,” she rumbled, “much trouble. But it isn’t well to foresee trouble,” and she sighed as if that “trouble” would break her own heart.

Cecilia was very restless. It would get late in spite of all calculations.

It was now Jean Faval’s turn. She walked in as if used to such scenes, had her glove off in advance, and handed out her hand as mechanically as if offering it to a manicurist.

The woman looked at her very sharply, and it was some moments before she spoke.

“The lines are crossed,” she said finally, “and so is your life to be. You have a great will, but you do not allow it to have its proper control. Your ambition is—money, and what about a letter? Who wrote the torn letter?”

She looked from the glass ball straight into Jean’s eyes, but the latter never flinched.

“Have you any questions to ask?” the woman inquired.

Jean hesitated. Then she said: “When will I get my answer to that letter? Is there anything in it?”

“No,” said the teller sharply. “The answer will surprise you very much. Don’t be too sure (common advice). But this very night you will dream. That dream is the answer to your letter.”

There was a perceptible titter from some place.

Then the seance was over!

Such a prattle, and such confusion as reigned among that party of girls as they hurried back to Glenwood!

Jean alone was silent. How did that woman guess about her letter? And she had warned her to be careful. Well, she would wait for a time at least. She would say nothing at school about Major Dale!