Cathalina yawned. “I wonder how late Betty will stay up.”
“What time is it?” asked Hilary, whose back was toward the clock.
“Eight-thirty, almost. I believe I’ll go over to the library and hunt up Betty,—O, I forgot. I certainly can’t do it in this rig.” Cathalina looked down upon her silk kimono and smiled. “Oh, hum. I guess it’s moonlight, isn’t it?” she said as she crossed the room to the window. Kneeling on the window-seat, she looked out to see a fitful moonlight and a moon crossed by floating clouds. Then she startled the girls by an explanation,—“Why, girls! Here are all Betty’s books!”
“Well?” said Lilian inquiringly, “Wasn’t she going to read at the library?”
“Not altogether, and besides, here are her notes, and everything that she told me she had all ready to use when she came back. Why, girls! I’ll have to go to the library now.”
Nobody was sleepy then. Cathalina dressed as quickly as possible and started over to the library. Hilary and Lilian started on the rounds of the rooms and suites in which Betty might possibly be visiting. No Betty, and the first bell rang for the close of study hours.
Cathalina came back looking frightened. “She isn’t anywhere over there, or in the practice rooms, or the chapel, and I even went over to the pest house, thinking that she might have slipped in there to see somebody. But after all, girls, those books on the window-seat tell the story, because I know that she was going to use them.”
Hilary and Lilian had been the rounds, too, but agreed with Cathalina that the presence of the books indicated something wrong, or at least a different plan.
“I’m going right down to Miss Randolph and she will tell us what to do,” decided Cathalina.
“We’ll dress and come down, too,” the girls assured her.