It was a joyous day when Judy returned to college just before mid-years, after her long exile in the back room of O'Reilly's. She was made welcome by all her particular friends who killed the "potted" calf, as Edith called it, in honor of the prodigal's return.

And Judy was well content with herself and all the world. A hair-dresser in Wellington had, by some mysterious process, restored her hair to very nearly its natural shade. Thanks to Molly, chiefly, and the others, she was well up in her lessons and quite prepared to breast the mid-year wave of examinations with the class. Never had the three friends at No. 5 been more gloriously, radiantly happy than now on the verge of final examinations. And then one day, in the midst of all this serenity and peace, Adele Windsor dropped in to call on Judy. At once Nance fled from the apartment. She could not bear the sight of this sinister young woman. Molly would have gone, too, but she remained, at an imploring glance from Judy, and slipped quietly into the next room, leaving the door ajar.

"Judy knows she can call for help if she needs it," she thought rather complacently, for she was no longer afraid of that arch mischief-maker.

As for Judy, she was singularly polite, but cold in her manner, and Molly detected a certain tremulousness in her voice.

"She's scared, poor dear," thought Molly indignantly. "Now, I wonder why?"

"I haven't seen you for weeks," Adele began in her sharp, assured tone. "Where have you been? I heard you had gone home."

"I was away for some time," answered Judy evasively.

"I hope and trust she thinks I have gone out with Nance," thought Molly in the next room, feeling a good deal like a conspirator. "She'll never come to the point if she knows I'm here, and I'd just like her to show her cards for once. It will be a glorious chance to get rid of her forever more, amen."

The light of battle came into Molly's eyes. "I feel like a knight pricking o'er the plain to slay a dragon," she thought, waving an imaginary sword in the air. "When it's all over I wish I had the nerve to say, 'Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell.'"

She gathered that Adele had moved more closely to Judy, for she heard her voice from a new quarter of the room saying:

"Is it true that you were dropped?"

There was a moment's pause.

"Whatever happened, Adele, it's over now and I am installed again and forgiven."

"I thought you were being rather reckless, Judy. The rope ladder business was bad enough, but those ghost walks were really dangerous; really you went too far——"

"I beg your pardon," interrupted Judy stiffly. "You are on the wrong track. I wasn't the campus ghost."

"Now, really, Judy, my dearest friend," cried Adele, seizing both of Judy's hands and looking into her eyes with an expression of gentle toleration, "why can't you confide in me? After all our good times are you going to give me the cold shoulder? I know perfectly well that you were the ghost. Have I forgotten the night you planned the whole thing out? Anne White was there. I daresay she remembers it quite as well as I do. Of course, we thought you were enjoying yourself frightening the life out of people, but we wondered, both of us, how you dared. I remember you said how easy it would be to chase girls if they ran, and how easy to escape because you were the swiftest runner in college. Why are you trying to deceive your old partner? Especially as I happen to know that you had the rope ladder all that time. It would have been easy enough. Oh, I'm on to you, subtle, secretive Judy. You are a clever little girl, but I'm on to you."

"What does she want?" Molly breathed to herself in the next room.

"But I won't tease you any longer, dearest. I only wanted to let you know that I'm at the very bottom of the secret. I came to talk about other things."

Molly breathed a long sigh.

"Here it comes," she thought.

Judy straightened up and prepared to hear the worst.

"Have the Shakespeareans and the Olla Podridas had their yearly conclave yet about new members?"

"So it's that," Molly almost cried aloud, waving her arms over her head.

"We meet on Saturday," answered Judy doggedly.

"You have a good deal of influence in that crowd, haven't you? I mean you can command a lot of votes?"

"No, I can't command any," answered Judy.

"Blackmailer," thought Molly.

"I was thinking," went on Adele calmly, "that I would like to become a member of one or both those clubs. If I have to make a choice I would prefer the Shakespeareans, of course. Can't you fix it up?"

"I'm afraid not, Adele. I can't manage it. I doubt if I could command any votes for you. You are mistaken about my influence."

"Oh yes, you can. Now, Judy, think a minute, I'm asking you a very simple, ordinary favor. Think of what it means to me and—well, to you, too. I might as well tell you right now that I'm a good friend but a bad enemy. You promised me once to get me into one of those clubs. Do you remember?"

"Yes," said Judy.

"Well, why this sudden change? I expect you to keep your word. I am wild to be a member of the Shakespeareans," here Adele changed her manner and her voice took on a soft, persuasive tone. "You won't regret it, Judy, dearest, you'll be proud of having put me up. I have a real talent for acting. I have, indeed, and I shall be able to get stunning costumes."

Judy twisted and squirmed and shrunk away like a bird being gradually hypnotized by a serpent—at least so it seemed to Molly peeping through a crack in the door.

"I tell you it will be impossible," Judy was saying, after a pause, when Adele burst out with:

"Those are unlucky words, Judy Kean. I'll make you sorry you ever spoke——" she stopped short off as Molly appeared in one door and Nance in the other, followed by Otoyo, Margaret and Jessie and the Williams sisters. Nance had evidently gone forth and gathered in the clan for Judy's protection. Molly was almost sorry they had come. It had been a good opportunity to say what had been seething in her mind for some time, and, on the whole, she decided she would say it anyhow.

With a bold spirit and a scornful eye, she marched into the room and stood before the astonished Adele.

"Miss Windsor," she said, and she hardly recognized her own voice, so deep and vibrant were its tones, "did you ever hear of snakey-noodles? Snakey-noodles! snakey-noodles! snakey-noodles!" she repeated three times like a magic incantation.

Judy must have thought that she had suddenly lost her mind, for she glanced at her with a frightened look and the other girls with difficulty concealed their smiles. Edith, whose keen perceptions at once informed her that something was up, took a seat by the window where she could command a good view of the entire proceedings.

Adele, looking into Molly's honest, stern eyes, shrank a little and started to rise.

"No, I shan't let you go until I have finished," said Molly. "Whenever the spirit moves you to ask a favor of Judy again, just say the word snakey-noodles over several times to yourself and then I think you'll leave Judy alone. Now, you may go, and remember that people who tell malicious, wicked stories, who impersonate ghosts, steal luncheons and get other girls into trouble are not welcome at Wellington. This is not that kind of a college."

It was, of course, a random shot about the campus ghost, but Molly put it in, feeling fairly certain that none but the daring Adele would have attempted that escapade.

"Remember, too," she added, as a parting shot, "that girls don't get into clubs here by blackmail. Even if Judy had put you up, you wouldn't have had the ghost of a chance."

Nobody was more interested than Edith in wondering what the strange Adele would do now. "Will she defend herself or will she fly?" Edith asked herself. But Adele did the most surprising thing yet. She burst into tears.

"You have no right to speak to me as you did," she wept into a scented and hand-embroidered handkerchief.

"Haven't I?" said Molly, drawing her gently but firmly to the door. "Well, go to your room and think about it a while and see if you don't change your mind." And with that she quietly thrust Adele into the hall, closed the door and locked it.

Then, such a burst of subdued laughter rose within No. 5 as was never heard before. Molly collapsed on the sofa while the girls gathered around her. Judy sat on the floor, her head resting on Molly's shoulder.

"It was as good as a play," cried Edith. "I never saw anything finer. Molly, you're certainly full of surprises. But what did you mean by snakey-noodles? Wasn't it beautiful?"

Then Molly explained to them about the snakey-noodle box.

"Of course, the rest was just wild guessing, but from the way she took it I'm pretty sure I'm right."

"It was better than jiu-jitsu," said Otoyo. "It was, I think, the jiu-jitsu of language."

They all laughed at this quaint notion, and Molly relaxed on the couch like a very tired young warrior after the battle.

"Judy, you're foolish to be afraid of that girl," said Margaret sternly.

"I'm not exactly afraid of her," answered Judy, "but you see it would have gone particularly hard with me just now to have her go to Miss Walker with that story about the ghost. It was true that one evening, in a wicked humor, I planned the whole thing with her and that little Anne who is just as afraid of her as I suppose I am. I don't think Miss Walker would have given me another chance. Everything would have been against me, the rope ladder and all the things I had said."

"But then you could have proved an alibi," said Nance. "You were up here the night the ghost chased Molly and me."

"So I could," Judy exclaimed. "I was so scared I forgot all about that night. There's something about Adele that makes you lose your senses. She leans over you and looks at you and talks to you in a hot, rapid sort of way. I just saw myself, after all the trouble everybody had taken with me, being sent away in disgrace. I didn't believe I could prove anything when she began talking. I just went under."

"Well, don't you ever do it again," put in Nance.

"Say 'snakey-noodles' the next time she comes at you," said Edith. "Oh, dear, that exquisite name," she continued, leaning back in her chair so as to indulge in a fit of silent laughter.

"I can tell you another interesting bit about this Miss Windsor," here put in pretty Jessie. "Do you remember that shabby little woman in black who came down on the same train with Molly's Mr. Lufton?"

"Nonsense," broke in Molly.

"I remember her," said Judy. "Adele said she was a dressmaker, I believe."

"Well, she told the truth for once. She is a dressmaker, but she happens to be Adele's mother, too."

"Her mother," they gasped in chorus.

"Yes. When Mama and I were in New York for the Christmas holidays, we were recommended to go to a French place called 'Annette's' for some clothes. There was a French woman named Annette who came out and showed us things, but the head of the establishment was Mrs. Windsor. And we saw Adele hanging around several times. We also saw Adele's father, very dressy with a flower in his buttonhole and yellow gloves. He smiled sweetly at me in the hall. The fitter told us secretly that Mrs. Windsor spent everything she made on Adele and Mr. Windsor."

"What a shame," cried Judy, "and Adele throws money around like water."

"No wonder she wears such fine clothes. I suppose Annette makes all of them."

"Thank heavens, we're rid of her forever," exclaimed Molly. "It's not difficult to find a spot of good in the worst of people. There were Minerva Higgins and Judith Blount and Frances Andrews. I never did feel hopeless about them, but this Adele, who doesn't recognize her own mother—well——"

"Ah, well," broke in Otoyo. "She is what we call in Japan 'evil spirit,' or 'black spirit.' She will not remain because there are so many good spirits. She will fly away."

"On a broomstick," put in Edith.

"But Minerva Higgins, there is some greatly big news about her. You have not heard?"

"No," they cried. Otoyo had become quite a little news body among her friends.

"She will not finish the course. She will be married in June to learned gentleman, a professor of languages of death——"

"You mean dead languages," put in Molly, laughing.

"Ah, well, it is the same."

"That is why Minerva looks so gay and blushing," said Jessie. "I saw her this morning reading a letter on one of the corridor benches. I might have guessed it was a love letter from her expression of supreme joy."

"I wonder if it was written in Sanskrit."

"I suppose after they marry they will have Latin for breakfast, Greek for dinner and ancient Hebrew for supper," observed Katherine.

"But the gold medals, what of them?"

"They will be saved for Pallas Athene, and Socrates, and Alcibiades Plato, of course," said Edith.

"Who are they?"

"Why, the children, goosie," and the party broke up with a laugh.

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