During the six months which she had spent at Leslie Manor, Beverly Ashby had been no more nor less than just herself: neither better nor worse than the average girl. But for her six months in a boarding-school presided over by a woman who had never known any real girlhood, or girlhood's exuberance, was an experience far different than for the average girl. Miss Woodhull had grown more and more iconoclastic, and more of a law unto herself with each advancing year. She had become as adamant to all natural impulses, and apparently dead to all affection. Bitterly intolerant of suggestion, advice, or even the natural laws of ethics. With each year she had grown more difficult to live with, and less and less fitted to govern growing girls. But in the beginning the school had established a reputation for the thoroughness of its curriculum and its instruction, as well as for its discipline, and there is little doubt that some of the girls which had come to it during the past thirty years were in need of some discipline. But Beverly Ashby was not of the type who required discipline of the order Miss Woodhull believed in. Beverly had lived for more than fifteen years under the discipline of love and good judgement, and had developed fairly well in that atmosphere. Her mother had never reproved or punished her in anger. The Admiral, while adoring her, was "boss of the ship," and both she and Athol had always recognized that fact. His word was law. Moreover, she had always been treated as a reasoning human being _invariably_ trusted; a nice code of honor having been established from the moment the twins could understand the meaning of that fine old word. And that is much earlier in children's lives than a good many grownups believe. No wonder an outraged little mortal now sat at her window, her heart beating tattoo, her temples throbbing, her cheeks blazing, her eyes flashing, but her hands clenched and icy cold. There she sat until all sounds in the big house were hushed. She was as rigid as though carved from marble, even though her breath came and went pantingly. The hand upon the clock in the stable tower crept from hour to hour, the bell telling off the half-hours. She neither saw nor heard. Then came the twelve long deliberate strokes announcing the witching hour. At the first stroke Beverly started into life. By the time the last had sounded the pretty pink dinner gown she had been wearing lay in a tumbled heap upon the bed where she had tossed it.