"My respect for Amelia would soar if she should attempt an elopement, but even the sea-serpent couldn't elope with a jellyfish. Amelia's young man may be a charmer, but he couldn't budge Amelia beyond hysterics." In the history of the school there had been an experiment with silent study in the individual rooms; but an impartial distribution of fudge over the bedroom carpets, gas fixtures and furniture, an epidemic of indigestion, and a falling off in class standing had effected a return to less confiding and more effectual methods of insuring quiet study. As Miss Barnes entered the study-room, after her talk with Belinda, a group of agitated backs surrounding Amelia Bowers dispersed guiltily, and the girls took their seats with the italicized demureness of cats who have been at the cream. Amelia herself radiated modest self-esteem. She was IT; she was up to her eyebrows in romance! What better thing had life to offer her? The teacher in charge looked at her sharply. "Miss Bowers, if you will transfer your attention from the wall paper to your French verbs you will stand a better chance of giving a respectable recitation to-morrow." Amelia's dreamy blue eyes wandered from the intricate design on the wall to the pages of her book, but they were still melting with sentiment, and her pink and white face still held its pensive, rapt expression. "_J'aime, tu aimes, il aime_," she read. "_Il aime!_"--she was off in another trance. Miss Barnes would have builded better had she recommended algebraic equations instead of French verbs. Following the study hour came an hour of recreation before the retiring bell rang. Usually the girls inclined to music and dancing in the parlours, but now the tide set heavily upstairs toward Amelia's room, which was at the back, and was the most coveted room in the house because the most discreetly removed from teachers' surveillance. When Miss Barnes passed the door later she heard the twang of a guitar and Amelia's reedy voice raised in song. The teacher smiled. Harmless enough, certainly. Probably she had been over-earnest and suspicious. Meanwhile, behind the closed door the girls of Amelia's set were showing a strange and abnormal interest in her music--an interest hardly justified by the quality of the performance. The lights in the room were turned down as low as possible. Amelia and her roommate, Laura May Lee, were crouched on the floor close by the open window, beyond which the lights of the houses around the square twinkled in the clear dark of the October night. Huddled close to the two owners of the room on the floor were six other girls, all big-eyed, expectant, athrill with interest and excitement.