“Ye-e-es ... that’s about it, I guess.” “Do they learn ’em outen books in there?” “Oh, yes; they have regular hours for study.” “An’ could--could a gal git in there what didn’t know nothin’ but a part o’ the fu’st reader?” “You don’t understand, yet, child. It’s only for girls who do wrong. Now, a girl like you never would go there.” Selina Jo sighed dejectedly. Her eyes caressed the buildings with their spotless white walls and wide-flung shutters, and the groups of girls scattered about the lawn. Presently she pointed to a high iron picket fence which enclosed the lot. “What’s the fence fer?” she asked. “Why, if that fence wasn’t there, little sister, half the girls there would light out before midnight,” the sheriff answered. “They’d run away?” Selina Jo shook her head incredulously. “F’um them purty houses?” Since it would be impossible for her to reach home that day, she spent another night with the sheriff’s family. In her dreams she saw white-painted buildings fashioned of real lumber. There was real glass in the windows, too; they weren’t just yawning black holes in the walls. And the chimneys were of brick; so different from the flimsy stick-and-clay affair that leaned drunkenly against one end of the cabin at home. Home! She seemed to sicken at the thought. Her dreams were peopled with girls in white blouses and blue skirts, thousands of them, it seemed to her. They were all within an iron-fenced inclosure, beckoning to her to enter; and she was always just on the outside. With morning came thoughts of her work in the turpentine orchard. Inexplicably, a vague dissatisfaction awoke within her. The idea began to burn itself into her consciousness that, though she might spend a lifetime in honest toil there, she would always be referred to as “one of that Hudsill tribe.” Apparently there was no escape from that. During breakfast she was unusually quiet and thoughtful. With a shy acknowledgment of thanks, she accepted the liberal lunch provided by the sheriff’s wife and made her adieus. Two miles outside the town she left the highway. A hundred yards from the road she seated herself upon a log and grimly prepared to wait. Darkness had fallen when she again entered Eastview and cautiously approached the reformatory from the rear. She scaled the iron fence with comparative ease. Crouching low, she crept toward a lighted window on the ground floor. Two girls of about her own age sat at a study table. Standing before the window, Selina Jo spoke. “Kin I come in?” she asked softly. One of the girls screamed slightly; the other, after her first involuntary start of amazement, seemed wonderfully selfpossessed. “Sure, Rube!” she invited cordially. “Step right in!” Selina Jo climbed over the low window sill into the room. “What you doin’ here?” one of the girls asked. “I’m j’inin’ o’ this here re-formin’ place,” was the unruffled answer. “You’re _wha-a-at_?” Very simply Selina Jo made known her intentions.