Back in Grammar School days they had played many pranks on their school fellows, and even in their freshman year they had dared to turn off all lights, one night at a dance of older schoolmates.
"If I tell, you won't give me away, will you ?" asked Miriam.
"I promise," said the older girl.
"Very well, then.

They meet at three-thirty at the Omnibus House on the River road." "Good," said the sophomore.

"Don't you want to come along and see the fun ?" "Don't count on me," answered Miriam, turning in at her gate, with mixed feelings of shame and triumph.
The Omnibus House, which had been chosen by Grace as the class meeting place, was an old stone building standing in the middle of an orchard.
It was now in ruins, but tradition set it down as a former inn and stage coach station built before the days of railroads, and finally burned by the Indians.

There was a curious hieroglyphic sign cut in a stone slab in the front wall which one of the High School professors interested in archaeology had deciphered as follows: "Peace and Justice Reign Over Mount Asia Tavern." Here the crowd of High School "plebes," as the sophomores scornfully dubbed them, met in conclave, partly to gather nuts in the woods near by, partly to discuss class matters, but chiefly to enjoy the crisp autumn weather.

The woods were still gorgeous in russets and reds, in spite of the recent heavy frosts, and there was a smell of burning leaves and dry bracken in the air.