“What on earth do you mean?” inquired that young lady, reaching for the olives.
“Why, there are so many interesting conversations going on all around me, that I want to hear them all.”
Anne laughed. “This is nothing; just wait until classes are in full swing. Then child psychology, music theory, library cataloguing, art appreciation, domestic science, and half a dozen other subjects are all being discussed simultaneously.”
That evening most of the girls had unpacking and settling to finish, but a few members of the Alley Gang gathered in Anne’s attractive room to visit. Betty Grant had just arrived, and she and Patricia had approved of each other at the first glance.
“Tell me, Betty,” Anne was saying, “is the Boy Friend coming down week ends, as he did last year?”
“No; this year, I’m going to work—hard.”
Everybody laughed.
“Well, I am. I told Ed he could come only twice during this term—”
“And a few times in between,” finished Hazel.
“By the way,” began Betty, in a different tone. “I saw the queerest thing, just as Ed and I drove up. There was a fellow standing in front of the laundry window, right under your room, Hazel, evidently talking to some one inside.”
“Come now, Betty,” protested Katharine, “you’re making that up to change the subject.”
“Honest to goodness, I’m not! I saw him plain as daylight. I didn’t say anything to Ed, because he would have wanted to investigate, and I’ve no fancy for having him get into an argument with strange men. He might have had a gun, for all I know.”
“Heavens, Betty! We’ll all be afraid to go to sleep tonight,” shuddered Mary. “Hazel, you’ll have to push your bed up close to mine so you can protect me.”
“What did the man look like?” asked Jane.
“I couldn’t see his face, but he was slight, of medium height and wore a grey suit and hat.”
“The blond youth!” whispered Anne to Patricia.
“But what would he be doing prowling around here?” asked Patricia, frowning.
“Search me! Oh, hello, Lu, where have you been all the evening?”
“In the laundry part of the time. I came on here right from a house party, and my clothes are in a fine state.”
Jane, Anne, Hazel, and Patricia glanced significantly at one another.
“Sure you were pressing, Lu?” asked Hazel mischievously.
Before Lucile had a chance to reply, Betty leaned forward and inquired, “Did you see the man, Lu?”
“What man?”
“The man who was looking in the laundry window.”
Lucile laughed, a bit loudly for her. “Nobody around the place while I was there,” she replied, with marked carelessness, “only Rhoda.”
“What was she doing?” asked Anne.
“Pressing her uniforms.”
A discussion of the new maid and her predecessor followed, and the subject of the mysterious man was dropped.
CHAPTER V
MOSS
One morning a couple of weeks later, Patricia was wakened suddenly by a marshmallow landing on her nose and scattering its fine, powdered sugar all over her face. Sitting up quickly, she saw through her open door Ruth and Jane in their room across the hall, sitting on their beds, doubled up with laughter.
“You fiends!” she cried softly. “Just you wait!”
“What’s the matter?” inquired Betty sleepily, from the other bed, without even opening her eyes.
“Those Goths across the hall threw a marshmallow in my face!” replied Patricia, seizing the unfortunate bit of confectionery and returning it with such good aim that it struck Jane’s hand and bounded off onto the rug, where it deposited the rest of its sugar.
“Get up, Lazy Bones!” ordered Jane. “We’ve got to go out for moss before breakfast.”
“I forgot all about it,” groaned Patricia. “I wish that botany class was in Hades.”
“I wish you’d all shut up,” complained Betty. “I want to sleep; and, thank Heaven, I don’t take botany.”
Patricia was soon ready, and the three girls stole softly down the hall and tried the front door.
“Who’s that?” called Mrs. Vincent, who slept, not only with her door open, but also, so the girls said, with her eyes and ears wide as well.
“Patricia, Ruth, and Jane going out for moss for botany class,” answered Jane. “We’ll be back before breakfast time.”
“Don’t go far away.”
“Does she think we can find moss on the fire escape?” demanded Jane scornfully.
“Just where are we going?” asked Patricia.
“I think we’ll cut through the back yard here into Foth Road and head out toward the country.”
They went around the side of the dormitory, and, to their surprise, saw Rhoda coming toward them across the back yard.
“Aren’t you up pretty early, Rhoda?” asked Jane casually, as the girl flushed and looked embarrassed.
“Not so very,” was the low reply. “I often run out here for a breath of fresh air before starting my work.”
“How fussed she acted,” commented Ruth, “just as if she’d been caught doing something she didn’t want anybody to know about.”
“Yes, I noticed that too,” said Patricia, carefully following her companions down the treacherous, broken stone ledges into the yard behind Arnold Hall.
“Why, Ruth,” cried Jane, “‘Big House’ is occupied! I didn’t know that; did you?” The girl regarded in surprise the three-story brick house across a narrow stretch of green lawn.
“No, I didn’t”—adding softly, “Come on; somebody is watching us from that bay window on the second floor.”
“How do you know?” demanded Jane, hurrying after her room mate.
“I saw a woman’s hand pull the curtain aside a little while we were waiting for Pat to come down the steps.”
“It’s a shame to spoil our short cut to Foth Road; for I suppose we can’t go through there any more. That house was empty all last year,” explained Jane, turning to Patricia, “which made it rather nice for us because, besides using the yard as a thoroughfare, we sometimes had little parties there or met our boy friends when we didn’t want to go out the front way with them. Oh, I assure you it was useful in lots of ways.”
They were out on the road by then, and walking briskly toward the country.
“We’ll never find any moss if we keep to the road,” objected Ruth, after they had walked a mile in vain. “I should think we’d have to go into the woods, see, over there.”
“Not I!” replied Jane. “I’m too afraid of snakes.”
Patricia laughed. “There aren’t any snakes in a pine woods. They’re mostly where there are lots of rocks.”
“Well, anyway we’ll go a little farther and then I, for one, take to the woods,” decided Ruth. “We’ve got to find some moss soon, and go home; and I won’t face Yates again with no specimens.”
“Isn’t