"Thank you, Miss Stearne," she said. "I am sure I shall be quite contented here. Is my room ready?" "Yes; and your trunk has already been placed in it. Let me know, my dear, if there is anything you need." Mary Louise went to her room and was promptly pounced upon by Dorothy Knerr and Sue Finley, who roomed just across the hall from her and were delighted to find she was to become a regular boarder. They asked numerous questions as they helped her to unpack and settle her room, but accepted her conservative answers without comment. At the noon luncheon Mary Louise was accorded a warm reception by the assembled boarders and this cordial welcome by her school-mates did much to restore the girl to her normal condition of cheerfulness. She even joined a group in a game of tennis after luncheon and it was while she was playing that little Miss Dandler came with, a message that Mary Louise was wanted in Miss Stearne's room at once. "Take my racquet," she said to Jennie Allen; "I'll be back in a minute." When she entered Miss Stearne's room she was surprised to find herself confronted by the same man whom she and her grandfather had encountered in front of Cooper's Hotel the previous afternoon--the man whom she secretly held responsible for this abrupt change in her life. The principal sat crouched over her desk as if overawed by her visitor, who stopped his nervous pacing up and down the room as the girl appeared. "This is Mary Louise Burrows," said Miss Stearne, in a weak voice. "Huh!" He glared at her with a scowl for a moment and then demanded: "Where's Hathaway?" Mary Louise reddened. "I do not know to whom you refer," she answered quietly. "Aren't you his granddaughter?" "I am the granddaughter of Colonel James Weatherby, sir." "It's all the same; Hathaway or Weatherby, the scoundrel can't disguise his personality. Where is he?" She did not reply. Her eyes had narrowed a little, as the Colonel's were sometimes prone to do, and her lips were pressed firmly together. "Answer me!" he shouted, waving his arms threateningly. "Miss Stearne," Mary Louise said, turning to the principal, "unless you request your guest to be more respectful I shall leave the room."