The next morning it was whispered from room to room that the second card had been filched from Miss Sterling's box of roses. Miss Castlevaine loved so well the transmitting of newsy tidbits, that they were not apt to remain long in one quarter.
"I'd do something about it!" she declared to Miss Major. "It has come to a pretty pass if our belongings have to be tampered with before we even are allowed to see them! I think somebody ought to tell the president."
The incident, however, passed with talk, nobody being willing to risk her residence in behalf of Juanita Sterling.
When Polly Dudley heard of it she waxed wrathful.
"I never liked Miss Sniffen," she declared, "and now I just hate her!"
"Polly!" remonstrated Miss Sterling.
"I don't care, I do! I wish mother was on the Board, then I 'd try to make her say something! What business has Miss Sniffen to open your boxes, anyhow? I almost know they came from Mr. Randolph, and that's why she's mad about it!"
"Polly, I hope you won't say that to anybody else. You've no more reason to think he sent them than you have to think King George sent them."
Polly chuckled.
"You haven't—intimated such a thing, have you?—to anybody else, I mean?" The question held an anxious tone.