She thought it very hard that she must lie awake and worry, while Elf could sleep; in short, she wanted some one to worry with her.
"It's like the way I climb trees when we're away in the summer," she muttered.
"It's fine climbing up, but I'm always afraid to climb down. If Bob is near, I can always make him get me down, but Bob isn't here to get me out of this mess, and Elf won't even try to keep awake to help me think."
She concluded that it was very unfeeling for Elf to be so sleepy. Her cheeks were flushed, and her head ached.
"O dear!" she whispered, softly, "Dorothy Dainty and Nancy Ferris are full of fun, but they never get into a regular fix such as I'm in now. I don't see how they manage to have such good times without ever getting mixed up in something that's hard to explain. And Betty and Valerie will get off Scot free, for 'The Fender' couldn't see them under the bed, and of course we'll not tell that they were there."
She did not know that when Betty and Valerie had reached their own room they found that in their haste to arrive at the "feast" they had left the light burning in their room!
Oh, indeed Miss Fenler had seen that, and she had opened the door. She had found no one there. She had seen that four had been enjoying the feast, because at each of the four sides of the spread were fragments of partly eaten cream-cakes, or bits of fruitcakes. Her sharp eyes had seen enough to assure her that two other girls were in hiding somewhere in the room, doubtless the two whose light had been left burning. She thought it clever to let them think that they had escaped notice. Their surprise would be greater when she sent them to Mrs. Marvin the next morning. Daylight found Vera tossing and turning, while Elf was dreaming. It was not that Vera could not bear reproof. She could listen for a half-hour to a description of her faults, and look like a cheerful flaxen-haired sprite all the while. That which now worried her was the thought that Mrs. Marvin might send her home.
It was the fifth time during the month that she had been reprimanded, and even gentle Mrs. Marvin might reach the limit of her patience.
Her father, she knew, would speak reprovingly, and then laugh at her. Her mother, always weak-willed, would say: "Vera, dear, I wonder if you were really naughty, or if it was that they didn't quite understand you."
Oh, there was nothing to fear about being sent home, but the fact that thus she would lose a deal of fun that she could so enjoy with a lot of lively girls of her own age.