Jean slipped across the hall to the Johnson girls’ room. “Lucy says Mollie hasn’t come upstairs either,” she reported immediately, “so what on earth shall we do? Miss Sterne has charge of our floor to-night and will be around in a few minutes to see that we are ready for bed. Then if Frieda isn’t here, won’t she just get it?” Jean was almost in tears from nervousness and vexation, having always tried to keep Frieda a little bit in order. Now that Frieda no longer paid any attention to her, she was both angry and frightened.
“I will slip downstairs and look for her,” Olive suggested faintly, knowing that she could never get downstairs and back again before Miss Sterne’s appearance and feeling that the vanishment of two girls might be even more conspicuous and draw greater wrath down upon their heads than the disappearance of one.
“Miss Winthrop or one of the other teachers would surely see you prowling around and would have to know the reason why, so that wouldn’t help the present situation,” Jean answered. “Surely Frieda will be here in a few minutes.” All up and down the hall the opening and shutting of bedroom doors could now be heard and the voices of the other girls bidding Miss Sterne and each other good-night.
CHAPTER IX
FRIEDA’S MISTAKE
Jean had on her blanket wrapper and had taken down her hair, but Olive, still fully dressed, kept darting from her own bedroom to Jean’s and Frieda’s, peering out both doors for a sign of the wanderer.
Finally Jean turned to her. “Come on, Olive, I don’t care in the least what Miss Winthrop does to Frieda when she finds out how she has behaved, but you and I must go to look for her.”
Jean and Olive were half-way out in the hall, where the lights were now being turned low, when a figure brushed by them. “Please let me get into my own room,” a voice said peevishly, and nothing loath, the three figures returned inside the room. “Begin undressing at once, Frieda Ralston,” Jean commanded, “and don’t say one word in explanation or excuse until Rebecca Sterne has gone by our room, for it is just barely possible that she may not have seen you sneaking along the hall.”
Jean spoke in tones of the utmost severity and even Olive gazed upon the youngest ranch girl with an expression of disapproval.
The preceptress’s knock came at this very instant.
“Whatever are you doing in your ball gown, Frieda?” Miss Sterne inquired, with her head on one side, gazing about through her large horn spectacles that Olive had so promptly disliked, like a wise old owl.