The Secret MarkAn Adventure Story for Girls
her," she decided. "She's been working hard lately and needs the sleep."

At last, clad in her dream robes, with her abundant hair streaming down her back and her white arms gleaming in the moonlight, she sat down by the open window to think and dream.

It was a wonderful picture that lay spread out before her, a vista of magnificent Gothic structures of gray sandstone framed in lawns of perfectly kept green. Sidewalks wound here, there, everywhere. Swarming with students during the waking hours, they were silent now. Her bosom swelled with a strange, inexpressible emotion as she realized that she, a mere girl, was a part of it all.

Like her roommate, she was one of the thousands of girls who today attend the splendid universities of our land. With little money, of humble parentage, they are yet given an opportunity to make their way toward a higher and broader understanding of the meaning of life through study in the university.

The thought that this university was possessed of fifty millions of dollars' worth of property, yet had time and patience to make a place for her, both awed and inspired her.

The very thought of her position sobered her. Four hours each weekday she worked in the stacks at the library. Books that had been read and returned came down to her and by her hands were placed in their particular niches of the labyrinth of stacks.

The work was not work to her but recreation, play. She was a lover of books. Just to touch them was a delight. To handle them, to work with them, to keep them in their places, accessible to all, this was joy indeed. Yet this work, which was play to her, went far toward paying her way in the university.

And at this thought, her brow clouded. She recalled once more the occurrence of a short time before and the strange little face among the stacks. She knew that she ought to tell the head of her section of the library, Mr. Downers, of the incident. Should anything happen, should some book be missing, she would then be free from suspicion. Should suspicion fall upon her, she might be deprived of her position and, from lack of funds, be obliged to give up her cherished dream, a university education.

"But I don't want to tell," she whispered to the library tower which, like some kindly, long-bearded old gentleman, seemed to be accusing her. "I don't want to."

Hardly had she said this than she 
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