"Didn't Mrs. Gurley tell you what to do?" she queried. "I should think it
likely she would. Oh well, if she didn't, I suppose you'd better bring
your things downstairs. Yes . . . and ask Miss Zielinski to give you a
shelf."

Miss Zielinski--she was the governess in the dining-hall--said: "Oh,
very well," in the rather whiny voice that seemed natural to her, and
went on reading.

"Please, I don't think I know my way," ventured Laura.

"Follow your nose and you'll find it!" said Miss Zielinski without
looking up, and was forthwith wrapt in her novel again.

Once more Laura climbed the wide staircase: it was but dimly lighted,
and the passages were in darkness. After a few false moves she found her
room, saw that her box had been taken away, her books left lying [P.51]
on a chair. But instead of picking them up, she threw herself on her bed
and buried her face in the pillow. She did not dare to cry, for fear of
making her eyes red, but she hugged the cool linen to her cheeks.

"I hate them all," she said passionately, speaking aloud to herself. "Oh,
HOW I hate them!"--and wild schemes of vengeance flashed through her
young mind. She did not even halt at poison or the knife: a big cake,
sent by Mother, of which she invited all alike to partake, and into
which she inserted a fatal poison, so that the whole school died like
rabbits; or a nightly stabbing, a creeping from bed to bed in the dark,
her penknife open in her hand...

But she had not lain thus for more than a very few minutes when steps