Several of the girls looked at one another significantly.
Queer things were happening at Highland Hall. There were mysterious disappearances; but whether they were due to carelessness or whether they were due to theft, no one could say. The fact remained. Various things of more or less value had vanished; and their owners were both puzzled and distressed. Hazel Benton had somehow lost her wrist watch, Ruth Dennis mourned a gold pencil that usually dangled from a ribbon about her neck, Mabel’s sentimental roommate, Isabelle, could not find the large gold locket containing Clarence’s picture—that vanished, Isabelle declared, while she was taking a bath, the only time she didn’t have it on.
Then, one morning, there was a scene in the dining room, where the girls and the teachers were eating their breakfast rolls and the two neat maids were passing the coffee. Madame Bolande, all excitement, and with her black dress face-powdered from collar to hem and her hair even wilder than usual, rushed into the dining room and declared volubly that two ten dollar bills had disappeared from the stocking under her bed.
“And,” declared Madame, balefully, “eet ees zat Mees Henrietta zat have taken zem. She ees the most baddest Mademoiselle zat I have een my class.”
At this point, just when things were getting really interesting, Doctor and Mrs. Rhodes rose hastily from their chairs, seized Madame by the elbows and escorted her quite neatly from the public gaze. The girls would have been glad to hear more.
Fortunately no one believed Madame’s accusation of Henrietta because all the girls knew how little love was lost between that lively girl and the untidy French woman. Madame always blamed Henrietta for anything that happened. Occasionally she was right, because Henrietta was a young bundle of mischief, with no respect whatsoever for Madame Bolande; but the girls knew that Henrietta was no thief. And Henrietta, far from appearing downcast at Madame’s outrageous words, giggled cheerfully and considered it a joke.
And then something else happened that turned even Madame’s unjust suspicion away from Henrietta. There was a burglar scare, a real burglar scare, in Hiltonburg. It lasted three weeks, during which time suddenly intimidated householders locked all their doors instead of just a few, bought catches for every one of their windows and caused themselves agonies of discomfort by putting their valuables away in supposedly burglar-proof spots overnight. Whether or not there really was a burglar at the bottom of this alarm nobody was able to discover; but the scare was certainly big enough and genuine enough while it lasted to upset the entire community. It started in the heart of the village, worked itself gradually along the State road, and, by the time it was a week or ten days old, crept through the hedge that surrounded Highland Hall and right into the house itself.
For days the girls talked of nothing else. Of course the different girls were affected in different ways. The three Seniors moved into one room and slept three in a bed, with their valuables under the mattress. Little Lillian Thwaite couldn’t think of the burglar without turning faint. Alice Bailey’s big black eyes grew so much bigger and blacker at mention of him that the sight always sent Augusta Lemon, who was particularly sympathetic, into spasms of fear. Bettie refused to walk through the corridors alone, even by broad daylight.
Victoria Webster was of different fiber. “Victoria,” as everybody knows, means “A Conqueror.” It certainly seemed as if this particular bearer of the name had conquered fear. At any rate she was not afraid. Moreover, she was not only courageous but she bragged about it until the other girls were just a little tired of it.
“I’d like to see the burglar I’d be afraid of,” boasted Victoria. “See here, Lillian, if you and Augusta and Bettie are afraid, I’ll move into the West Dormitory and take care of you.”