"Mabel."
"What a darling Mabel is," said Grace half aloud. "I wonder who I had better invite." Arline's pretty, wilful face rose before her. She would have liked to ask Arline, but that was out of the question. There was Ruth, but Ruth and Arline were too closely associated to be separated. Suddenly she remembered Patience. "The very girl!" she exclaimed. "I'll go and ask her now. Oh, no, I can't. I said I wouldn't go into her room again. Never mind, I will see her at luncheon."
Grace made it a point to be the first girl in the dining room at luncheon, and when Patience appeared beckoned her to the seat beside her. "Sit here," she invited. "Emma won't be in. She is going to Morton House for luncheon; she told me so."
Patience slipped into the vacant seat. "I would like to have a talk with you after luncheon," she said in a guarded voice.
"Then come into my room," returned Grace softly.
During the progress of the meal Kathleen West appeared, silent and morose. She nodded slightly to several girls, favored Grace and Patience with an unspeakably insolent glance, then turned her undivided attention to her luncheon.
"Why won't you tell me what happened?" was Patience's abrupt question when Grace had beckoned her into her room and closed the door. "She is my roommate, you see, and unless you enlighten me as to the nature of her crime I shall not know just how to proceed with her."
"I don't like to tell tales," demurred Grace. "Still, I believe I am justified in repeating the story to you, Patience. You have no illusions regarding Kathleen."
"None whatever," smiled Patience, but a disapproving frown wrinkled her forehead at the recital of Kathleen's treachery. "It was abominable in her," she said when Grace had finished. "And I had begun to assure myself that she was improving daily, too."
"She came out of her shell so beautifully the night we went to the station house," sighed Grace. "I never dreamed she was planning mischief. However, I have something to ask you. Here, read this letter; then I'll talk." She tendered Mabel's letter to her friend.