"I have always had a curious conviction that the man who took that money had been traveling around in the hall all evening," said Anne thoughtfully. "Whoever it was, he must have seen Grace deposit the money in the box, and he also knew the exact location of the switch."

"One would imagine the box too heavy to have been spirited away so easily," said Tom Gray. "The weight of all that silver must have been considerable."

"Yes, it did weigh heavily," replied Grace. "Still, we had a great many bills, too. In spite of the weight the thief did make a successful get away, and we owe Judge Putnam a heavy debt of grat.i.tude for making good our loss."

"'Look not mournfully into the past,'" quoted Hippy, "but rather turn your attention to the important matter of refreshing the inner man."

"You fixed your attention on that matter years ago, Hippopotamus," said Reddy, "and since then you've never turned it in any other direction."

"Which proves me to be a person of excellent judgment and unqualified good taste," answered Hippy with a broad grin.

"More taste than judgment, I should say," remarked David.

"This conversation is becoming too personal," complained Hippy. "Excuse me, Nora, use that Irish wit of yours and lay these slanderers low."

"I am neither a life preserver nor a repairer of reputations," replied Nora cruelly. "Fight your own battles."

"All right, here goes," said Hippy. "Now Reddy Brooks and David Nesbit, I said, that what you said, and formerly have said to have said, was said, because you happened to have said something that I formerly was said to have said that never should have been said. What I really said--"

But what Hippy really did say was never revealed, for David and Reddy laid violent hands upon their garrulous friend and, escorting him to the kitchen door, shoved him outside and calmly locking the door, left him to meditate in the back yard, until Nora suddenly remembering that she had set the fudge on the steps to cool, opened the door in a hurry to find Hippy seated upon the lower step, a piece of fudge in either hand, looking the picture of content.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Hippy Sat With A Piece of Fudge in Either Hand]

The party broke up at eleven o'clock, and the hard task of saying good-bye began. The boys were to leave early the next morning, so the girls would not see them again until Easter.

"Don't forget to write," called Nora after Hippy, as he hurried down the steps after the others, who had reached the gate.

"You'll hear from me as soon as we hit the knowledge shop," was the rea.s.suring answer.

At the corner the little party separated, Hippy, Reddy and Jessica going in one direction, Anne and David in another, leaving Tom and Grace to pursue their homeward way alone. As they turned into Putnam Square, Grace gave a little exclamation, and seizing Tom by the arm, drew him behind a statue of Israel Putnam at the entrance of the square.

"Marian Barber is coming this way with that horrid Henry Hammond," she whispered. "I don't care to meet them. I have not spoken to him since the house party, and Marian will be so angry if I cut him deliberately when he is with her. I am sure they have not seen us. They were invited to Miriam's to-night. We'll stand here until they pa.s.s."

The two young people stood in the shadow quietly waiting, unseen by the approaching couple, who were completely absorbed in conversation.

"I tell you I can't do it," Grace heard Marian say impatiently. "It doesn't belong to me, and I have no right to touch it."

Hammond's reply was inaudible, but it was evident that Marian's remark had angered him, for he grasped her by the arm so savagely that she cried out: "Don't hold my arm so tightly, Henry, you are hurting me. I am not foolish to refuse to give it to you. Suppose you should lose it all--"

They had pa.s.sed the statue by this time, and Grace and Tom heard no more of their conversation. There was a brief silence between them, then Grace spoke.

"Tom, what do you suppose that means?"

"I don't know, Grace," was the answer. "It didn't sound very promising."

"I should say not," said Grace decidedly. "I feel sure that Henry Hammond is a thoroughly unscrupulous person, and I shall not rest until I find out what the conversation we overheard leads to."

"I believe you are right," said Tom, "and I'm only sorry I can't be here to help ferret the thing out."

"I'll write and keep you posted as to my progress," promised Grace, as she said good-bye to Tom at the Harlowe's door, a little later.

"Good-bye, Tom. Best wishes to Arnold. I'm sorry I didn't see him again."

"Good-night, Grace, and good-bye," said Tom, and with a hearty handshake they parted.

As Grace prepared for bed that night she turned Marian's words over and over in her mind, but could arrive at no logical conclusion, and finally dropped to sleep with the riddle still unsolved.

CHAPTER XIV

GRACE AND ANNE PLAN A STUDY CAMPAIGN

With the delights of the past holiday season still fresh in their memories, the pupils of Oakdale High School went back to their studies on the fourth of January, and in the course of a few days everything was again in smooth running order.

Semi-annual examinations were but three weeks away, and that meant a general brushing up in studies on the part of every pupil.

The senior cla.s.s had, perhaps, less to do in the way of study than the three lower cla.s.ses. A few of the seniors already had enough credits to insure graduation, although the majority expected the results of the January examinations to place them securely among the number to be graduated.

The members of the Phi Sigma Tau, with the exception of Anne, were among the latter, and had settled down to a three weeks' grind, from which no form of pleasure could beguile them.

As for Anne, she had carried five studies the entire time she had been in High School and had never failed in even one examination. She might have graduated a year earlier had she been so disposed.

Away down in her heart Anne cherished a faint hope that the way for a college career would yet be opened to her. She had made up her mind to try for a scholarship, and she prayed earnestly that before the close of her senior year she might hit upon some plan that would furnish the money for her support during her freshman year in college.

Grace was optimistic in regard to Anne's college career.

"You'll have some opportunity to earn money before the year is out, just see if you don't," she said to Anne one day at recess, when the latter had developed an unusual case of the blues. "If you just keep wishing hard enough for a thing you are pretty sure to get it. That is, if it's something that's good for you to have."

"I've been wishing for the same thing ever since I came to Oakdale, and I haven't got it yet," replied Anne rather mournfully. "I've been unusually short of money this year, too, because Mrs. Gray has been away, and the money I received from her work was a great help."

"Poor little Anne," said Grace sympathetically. "I wish you didn't have to worry over money. However, Mrs. Gray will be home in February, and you'll have her work until June."

"But even so, I can't have the use of it myself," was Anne's response.

"I shall have to use it at home. We need every cent of it."

"Oh, dear," sighed Grace. "Why doesn't some one appear all of a sudden and offer you a fine position at about fifty dollars a week."

"Yes," said Anne, laughing in spite of her blues. "That is what really ought to happen, only the day for miracles is past."

"At any rate, I have always felt that you and I were going to college together, and I believe we shall," predicted Grace.

"I hope so, but I doubt it," replied Anne wistfully. "By the way, Grace, do you recite in any of Marian Barber's cla.s.ses?"

"No," said Grace, "not this term. Why?"

"She is in my section in astronomy," answered Anne, "and lately she fails every day in recitation. You know it's a one-term study, and she will have to try an exam in it before long. I don't believe she'll pa.s.s, and she told Nora at the beginning of the year that if she failed in one study this year she wouldn't have enough credits to get through and graduate."