One evening Mrs. Miller, seated with Miss Wilson in the study, correcting examination papers, heard in the distance a cry like that of a cat in distress.  She ran to the door and listened.  Presently there arose a prolonged wail, slurring up through two octaves, and subsiding again.  It was a true feline screech, impossible to localize; but it was interrupted by a sob, a snarl, a fierce spitting, and a scuffling, coming unmistakably from a room on the floor beneath, in which, at that hour, the older girls assembled for study.

“My poor Gracchy!” exclaimed Mrs. Miller, running downstairs as fast as she could.  She found the room unusually quiet.  Every girl was deep in study except Miss Carpenter, who, pretending to pick up a fallen book, was purple with suppressed laughter and the congestion caused by stooping.

“Where is Miss Ward?” demanded Mrs. Miller.

“Miss Ward has gone for some astronomical diagrams in which we are interested,” said Agatha, looking up gravely.  Just then Miss Ward, diagrams in hand, entered.

“Has that cat been in here?” she said, not seeing Mrs. Miller, and speaking in a tone expressive of antipathy to Gracchus.

Agatha started and drew up her ankles, as if fearful of having them bitten.  Then, looking apprehensively under the desk, she replied, “There is no cat here, Miss Ward.”

“There is one somewhere; I heard it,” said Miss Ward carelessly, unrolling her diagrams, which she began to explain without further parley.  Mrs. Miller, anxious for her pet, hastened to seek it elsewhere.  In the hall she met one of the housemaids.

“Susan,” she said, “have you seen Gracchus?”

“He’s asleep on the hearthrug in your room, ma’am.  But I heard him crying down here a moment ago.  I feel sure that another cat has got in, and that they are fighting.”

Susan smiled compassionately.  “Lor’ bless you, ma’am,” she said, “that was Miss Wylie.  It’s a sort of play-acting that she goes through.  There is the bee on the window-pane, and the soldier up the chimley, and the cat under the dresser.  She does them all like life.”

“The soldier in the chimney!” repeated Mrs. Miller, shocked.

“Yes, ma’am.  Like as it were a follower that had hid there when he heard the mistress coming.”

Mrs. Miller’s face set determinedly.  She returned to the study and related what had just occurred, adding some sarcastic comments on the efficacy of moral force in maintaining collegiate discipline.  Miss Wilson looked grave; considered for some time; and at last said:  “I must think over this.  Would you mind leaving it in my hands for the present?”

Mrs. Miller said that she did not care in whose hands it remained provided her own were washed of it, and resumed her work at the papers.  Miss Wilson then, wishing to be alone, went into the empty classroom at the other side of the landing.  She took the Fault Book from its shelf and sat down before it.  Its record closed with the announcement, in Agatha’s handwriting: