“I saw her there,” returned Diane, also whispering, “went by on purpose. Now if she’ll just forget to look at her watch and only keep her nose in her book! The electric bell hasn’t been working for a day or two, so she’ll not be reminded.” They waited a few minutes, then Isabel slipped up to the door and with two or three “stickers,” hastily pasted up a notice which she had been carrying for days. NO CICERO TODAY ADVANCED LESSON OF TEN LINES “Now you go up front,” said Isabel, “and head ’em off there. Tell ’em notice up, no lesson today. “I’ll stay to watch her and catch ’em from upstairs, and the outside door. She’ll never suspect me if she does come out an’ spoil it all, ’cause I’m not in the class.” “She might think we’d had you put the notice up. Ten lines looks a little suspicious, doesn’t it?” “Yes, because she would give at least thirty, Grace said, but the class wouldn’t get any good of it if they had to get a whole lesson, and after all this trouble!” “Well, don’t let anybody get by you to try the door,—by mistake, of course; nobody would want to!” “Sh-sh!” warned Isabel, “go along.” The girls began to arrive for class, one or two at a time at first. Fortunately for the scheme the Latin room was at a corner of the building, where the noise of the dismissal of classes was least, and the learned Doctor was very absent-minded. The sound of the last bell had died away. Isabel and Grace kept count and knew that the last Cicero girl had come and gone, those who did not understand with thankful, smiling looks and no disposition to go to the door to view the notice more closely, and those who were in the plan with careful tip-toeing and looks of joy. Grace whisked up the stairs in the front of the building, and Isabel up the back stairs, there to meet and giggle, as Dr. Carver at last opened her door and came out in perplexed surprise. She looked up and down the hall, and even went out to the front entrance. Then coming back, she saw the notice. Isabel, who had been leaning over the bannister to see Dr. Carver’s movements, backed away into Grace’s arms with a suppressed shriek. “I wish you had seen her face when she caught sight of that notice! She’ll finish all of us tomorrow sure! Let’s pass the word around to have perfect lessons!” Grace took a peep, but turning hastily, caught Isabel’s arm. “Hurry, she’s coming up!” Up the second flight to the third story they tiptoed, right over the angry Doctor’s head, and thankful they were that she was fat and slow. “Come on; we’ll be in the library reading, and not together.” “Not I,” said Grace, “I’m going to be safe in my little room over at Greycliff Hall. Watch me get down the front stairs!”