to the chapel stood Miss Ellingwood, a book in her hand. She was assigning seats which the students were to keep for the year.

"Wenner, Row B, left, seat 32. Down there to the left, Sarah, near the girl in the white dress."

Sarah made her way down the sloping aisle. She had never been in any room larger than the little country church, and this chapel with its high ceiling, its fine chandeliers, seemed marvelous. In the chandeliers, strange to say, candles were burning instead of lamps.

To her dismay, her seat was directly beneath one of them. She glanced upward uneasily. There was no contrivance to catch the drippings, and everybody must know that candles dripped. She looked down at her new blue dress; it would be impossible to get candle grease out of it. She meant to speak to the girl in the white dress; then she saw that Mabel Thorn was coming down the aisle. She took the next seat.

"Are you not afraid of the candles?" whispered Sarah.

"What candles?"

"Those, up there. They will drip on us."

Mabel tilted her head and looked up. Then she grinned.

"Did you never hear of gas?" she asked.

"Stove gas," answered Sarah. "Our stove makes it when the wind is not right."

"You never heard of illuminating gas?"

Sarah shook her head. "Never."

"Where do you come from?"

"Near Spring Grove post-office."

"Well, the candles won't hurt you," laughed Mabel.

She got up and went across to the next row of seats to where the girl in white was sitting, and whispered to her, and they both turned and looked at Sarah. Then she came back to her place, as the chapel began to fill, and whispered to the girl on the other side, and she looked at Sarah and laughed. Sarah became slowly aware that she had said something very foolish.

Mabel did not wait for her when chapel was over, nor did she and Ellen appear until bed-time. Sarah had sat for a long time staring across the moonlit campus, and waiting to ask which bed she should take. There were a double and a single bed side by side. She supposed that the two friends would wish to sleep together, but she did not know. Once she heard the doleful strains of "Home, Sweet Home," played on a mouth organ, and some one called, "Have mercy on the new students!" and there was a burst of laughter.

When Mabel and Ellen finally arrived, they told her that she was to have the single bed. She supposed that now they would put the room in order. Well, she would cover her head from the light, and be thankful. But they undressed and tumbled into bed, even before Sarah was ready, without touching anything except the articles which were in their way. In a suspiciously short time, they were asleep.

Sarah lifted the clothes from the single bed and laid them on the chairs, then she attempted to blow out the light. Mabel was wide awake in an instant.

"Turn it off there at the wall, you goose!" she said; and was at once apparently asleep.

Sarah made her way warily toward her bed. Having said her prayers, she laid back the covers and jumped in.

Instantly there was a terrific crash, and she went down with spring and mattress to the floor. She was for the first second too terrified to breathe, then she picked herself up and found that she was not hurt. There was a faint light coming in through the transom, and she could see that the slats which supported the springs had become misplaced. With a little help, she could readjust them.

"Ach, would you please help me a little?" she begged.

There was no response from the double bed. Instead there came a heavy knock at the door.

"Who is out?" asked Sarah faintly. If the principal himself had replied, she would not have been surprised.

A stern "Let me in!" answered her. She drew her dress on over her nightgown and went to the door. A strange figure stood without,—a tall woman in a long, flowered dressing-gown.

"What was that noise?"

Sarah pointed to the bed. "I—I didn't know it would go—go down."

"Where are your room-mates?"

Mabel and Ellen evidently thought it was time to manifest signs of life.

"Here, Miss Jones."

"Can you explain this?"

"Oh, no, we were asleep. Weren't we, Sarah?"

"It just went down," stammered Sarah. "I—I guess I jumped too hard on it."

"What is your name?"

It was the first time the Wenner name had ever been mentioned with hesitation and shame.

"Sarah Wenner."

The tall figure was gone, its silent departure worse than threats, and Sarah closed the door. Mabel turned over lazily.

"Get up and help her fix the bed, Ellen, I saved her from blowing out the light."

Ellen rose, grumbling. Miss Jones lived beneath them and was the strictest teacher in the school, she said. Sarah would be haled to the office to-morrow. She helped to put the slats in place, and told Sarah not to make any more noise. Then, long after exhausted and terrified Sarah had fallen asleep, she giggled with Mabel until the night-watchman rapped at the door. That, mercifully, Sarah did not hear.

CHAPTER III SARAH LOSES HER TEMPER

When Sarah opened her eyes, early the next morning, it was scarcely more than light. She was accustomed to spring out of bed before she was fully awake; there had been very little time in her life for the last, delicious nap of early morning. There was always the stock to be fed, the cows to be milked, and the milk to be taken to the creamery, and afterwards the twins to be roused and fed and sent to school. Since Laura's advent, life had been vastly easier, but the feeling of responsibility had not altogether vanished from Sarah's mind.

There was something about the happenings of the night before that sent her hurrying out of bed as she hurried when the fear of Uncle Daniel hung over her, when she used to get up before daybreak to assure herself that the twins and Albert and the farm property were all safely in place.

She could not at first make out where she was; then the prodigious chaos of the room recalled yesterday's experiences. And here was her own bed, pushed out a little from the wall, its covers all awry. She remembered now distinctly what had happened last night.

Ellen and Mabel slept peacefully in their double bed; and as she remembered her sudden downfall and their lack of sympathy, her face flushed. Snatches of their whispered talk, heard in drowsiness, came back to her, and she began slowly to guess that it was neither the carelessness of the school bedmakers nor her own light weight which had sent the spring and mattress tumbling to the floor. She felt a pang of fright as she remembered the stern teacher in the flowered gown. But surely, they would not punish her for an accident! Presently a faint smile lifted the corners of her mouth. There was no doubt that it had been funny. But the girls might have waited until she was a little more at home.

When she was dressed she sat down by the window. There was not a soul to be seen on the quiet campus, and not a sound to be heard. It was almost six o'clock, and she began to be hungry. She had forgotten to ask the breakfast hour.

After a while there were faint noises, the opening of a distant door, the sound of sweeping down on the walks, and then the ringing of a great hand-bell. Sarah heard it first in a far corner of the building, then it drew nearer and nearer,