"Ha! ha!" laughed Laura, hollowly. "Wait till you have seen the supper table."
"What do you mean?" queried Nan, curiously.
"You see all this luxury about you," proclaimed the red-haired girl, solemnly. "You beheld the magnificence of the main hall as you came in. And it extends to Dr. Beulah's apartments, which are downstairs here, on the right of the main door.
"But when you turn the other way," continued Laura, "and approach the chaste and nunnery-like rooms devoted to the uses of 'us young ladies,' as Mrs. Cupp calls us, you will at once and immediately be struck, stroke, and stricken with the vast and monstrous difference between our part of the castle and Dr. Beulah's.
"Oh!" cried this extravagantly speaking girl, "Dr. Beulah has her course dinner at night, carried in by black Susan on a mighty tray. I have often thought that it would be a great lark to catch Susan in the back hall, blindfold her, threaten her with the boathouse ghost if she squealed, and bear off the doctor's dinner as the spoils of the campaign."
"But goodness me!" cried Nan, when she could speak for laughter. "Don't they really give you enough supper?"
"Wait! Only wait!" repeated Laura, warmly. "You'll soon see. Dr. Beulah believes most thoroughly in 'the simple life'--for us girls. Oh, she do--believe me! And I think Mrs. Cupp even counts the crackers that go on each dish that is set on the table at supper time.
"Sometimes we have crackers and milk for supper," added Laura, dropping her voice to the tone of one telling a ghost story at midnight. Then in a still more ghost-like voice she repeated: "Sometimes we have crackers and milk. The lacteal fluid is usually twice skimmed, first for the teachers' table (they have cream in their coffee in the morning), secondly for the thin, anæmic fluid we get on our oatmeal. But, anyhow, it is milk.
"There are never more than seven crackers on a plate--just seven, the perfect number," sighed this hyperbolical girl. "I've counted them again and again. Why seven, and not six, or eight, deponent knoweth not. I think Mrs. Cupp counts them out that way for some fell purpose of her own," went on Laura, reflectively. "She must have the crackers all numbered and she deals 'em around as in a game at cards. Anyhow, I tried a trick once and it didn't work, so I believe she has them numbered."