"But she has admitted to me that she bought the postal order." The girls looked at their chum in consternation. Raymonde buried her face in her hands. At this critical juncture there was the sound of a scrimmage outside in the passage, and a loud excited voice was heard proclaiming: "I will go in! I tell you I've come to see Miss Raymonde Armitage, and it's important. Miss Beasley there? All the better! I want to speak to her too. Will you kindly move out and let me pass? Oh, very well then--there!" The door opened with a forcible jerk, and a stranger entered unceremoniously. She was a damsel of perhaps fifteen, slim, and very pretty, with twinkling brown eyes and curly hair and coral cheeks. She wore an artistic dress of myrtle-green Liberty serge, with a picturesque muslin collar, and had a chain of Venetian beads round her white throat. The school gazed at her spellbound, almost aghast. "The ghost-girl!" murmured Veronica faintly sinking into a chair. "Violet!" exclaimed Raymonde in tones of ecstasy. "Yes, here I am, right enough!" announced the stranger. "Cycled over directly I read your letter. Stars and stripes! You've got yourself into a jolly old mess! Hope they haven't tortured you yet! I suppose they still use the rack and the thumbscrew in this benighted country? Cheero! We'll pull you through somehow!" Then, catching the Principal's amazed and outraged expression, she continued: "Sorry! Are you Miss Beasley? I ought to have introduced myself. I do apologize! My name's Violet Chalmers, and I'm an American." She proclaimed the fact proudly, though her soft r in "American," and slightly nasal intonation, would have established her nationality anyway. "May I ask your errand?" said the head mistress rather stiffly. "Certainly. I've come to help Raymonde out of a scrape. I never dreamed she'd be landed in such a queer business as this. I say, Ray, will you explain, or shall I do the talking?" "You, please!" entreated Raymonde.