"You go down with your table," Lois explained. "You can do what you like, after dinner. We have a lecture to-night but it doesn't begin until eight."
Little did any of them guess how literally Maud would take Lois' words.
After dinner the Seniors were detained by Mrs. Baird to meet the lecturer and see that the Assembly Hall was in order. This took up their time.
The lecture was already on its way when Polly suddenly nudged Lois: "Lo, Maud is not here," she said in an agonized whisper, "what'll we do?"
Lois looked carefully all over the hall. Maud was nowhere in sight. "She's probably in her room," she whispered back.
They sat in nervous silence. The lecturer paused in his discourse for a minute.
"If I had a buttonhook and a piece of string," he said, turning to Mrs. Baird, "I could demonstrate what I mean."
Polly jumped from her seat, caught Mrs. Baird's eye, before any one else, and, in obedience to her nod, left the room.
She hurried over the Bridge of Sighs, for she hoped to get the articles required, and discover Maud without being absent from Assembly Hall too long. The sound of splashing made her stop and listen half way down the corridor. Some one was apparently taking a bath in the faculty tubs. She thought for a minute, and remembered all the teachers were on the platform. A horrible fear entered her mind. A second later the bark of a dog, followed by a low growl, crystallized the fear to a dreadful certainty.
She pushed open the door. Maud, her sleeves rolled up to the elbows, was kneeling beside the tub scrubbing a little wiry-haired yellow puppy, who was protesting vigorously.