“The fat of corpses, and consecrated hosts, and all that kind of stuff. You have to boil ’em into a sort of broth and smear yourself with it and dance about and say the most frightful curses and blasphemies. He tried to make the broth out of substitutes, but he didn’t succeed in raising anything except an unholy smell. There was a big row about it, too, and he was nearly expelled, besides being more or less barred afterwards by every one. You see, he made a couple of kids help him, and one of them got frightened out of his life and blabbed the whole thing:――wrote home about it. _You_ remember, Weston?” Edward grunted. “He _was_ expelled. At least, his people had to take him away at the end of term.” “I think it served him right,” said Ann gravely. “I didn’t know boys _could_ be so wicked.” “Oh, he was like that,” answered Palmer lightly; “he couldn’t help it. My pater, when I told him about it, said he was a morbid degenerate, and ought to be treated by a doctor.” “And supposing the devil _had_ come; he might have taken the whole school, and you and Edward too.... I expect that was why you all got diphtheria.” “_We_ hadn’t anything to do with it. It was only him and the two wretched kids he got hold of.” “I think you ought to say your prayers pretty often, Balmer.” “But I tell you I didn’t even know about it till it was all over.” “Still, you were near the place where it happened.” Ann’s voice had a suspicious break in it, and her mouth took a downward droop as she held Palmer’s hand firmly, prepared for an instant tug-of-war with any malign power which might suddenly enter to whisk him away. “Don’t be so silly, Ann,” said Barbara, unsympathetically. But Palmer, who divined that he had, though quite unintentionally and he knew not how, touched a hidden spring of tears, returned, unnoticed, the pressure of her hand. “It’s all right,” he said. “It’s only nonsense.” Ann’s devotion, simple and undisguised, secretly pleased him. He thought she was a jolly nice little kid. “We might make up riddles!” Jim proposed, “and give a prize to the one who guesses most.” “We might get Miss Johnson to finish reading her novel,” said Ann, happy once more. Palmer shrugged his shoulders. He and Miss Johnson were not at present on good terms. “It was pretty rotten, what she _did_ read,” he said. “I thought it was lovely,” Barbara murmured dreamily. “But she’s lent it to Mr. Drummond. I saw her giving it to him.” “I tell you what would be a good rag,” said Palmer. “We’ll dramatize the novel and act it.” “You can’t dramatize it if you haven’t got it,” Edward objected. “That doesn’t matter. We know quite enough of it. We can rig up a sort of stage in the back drawing-room, and give a performance this evening.” “I don’t know that Miss Johnson would like it,” said Barbara, doubtfully. “Of course she’ll like it. Why shouldn’t she?” He sketched out a play-bill, while the others leaned over his shoulder.