Page:Betty Gordon at Boarding School.djvu/153

Rh pass lest the blackmailer expose her to the principal. Betty had seen Bob at a football game, and had borrowed fifteen dollars from him. She could not write her uncle, for communication with him was uncertain and her generous allowance came to her regularly through his Philadelphia lawyer.

"He wants twenty-five dollars by to-morrow night!" whispered Libbie, meeting Betty in the hall after her last visit to the buried bottle. "Oh, Betty, what shall we do?"

Both girls had watched patiently and furtively in their spare time in an effort to detect the person who dug up the bottle, but they had never seen any one go near the spot.

As it happened, when Libbie whispered her news to Betty, they were both on their way to recitation with Miss Jessup whose current events class both girls nominally enjoyed. To-day Betty found it impossible to fix her mind on the brisk discussions, and half in a dream heard Libbie flunk dismally.

When next she was conscious of what was going on about her—she had been turning Libbie's troubles over and over in her mind without result—Miss Jessup was speaking to her class about the "association of ideas."

"We won't go very deeply into it this