LATE at night, when no one is around, a solitary Cliffie creeps down the steps of her off-campus house, into the kitchen she shares with 20 other girls. Making doubly sure that she is alone, she begins eating. She may start with apples and cheese, but she soon moves on to buttered toast, cookies, milk, mashed potatoes, hamburger, and cold dry cereal. She takes everything with her fingers, even if it is usually caten with a knife and fork. She pushes tiny bits of food into her mouth faster and faster, feeling herself grow full, fuller, and finally much, much too full, but still she goes on Finally, when the mere thought of food disgusts her, she stops exhausted, bloated and hating herself fariously. But before she goes back upstairs to bed she takes a little more.

This girl is not fat, but perhaps ten pounds away from her ideal weight. Tomorrow she will feel terribly guilty, and skip breakfast and maybe lunch. She is not the least bit unique: almost every Cliffie recognizes the phrase "compulsive cater" with a shiver of aorror and embarrassment.

"You know right from the beginning that you're going to gorge yourself and then feel terrible," said one girl. "The worst thing is when your stomach gets so hard that you can't even push it in with your hand," added her roommate. Everyone sitting around the lunch table laughed hysterically. Compulsive eating is practically never discussed, but when it does come up it is accompanied by great nervous gaiety.

One Cliffie loves sweets, but attacks her favorite foods discreetly. If a half of a cake is left over she will cut herself paper-thin slices "almost to make believe I'm not eating" until the whole thing is gone. At home she picks away at icing irresistibly, even though her family gets enraged at the "mothholes."

Another girl, who dotes on yoghurt, decided "you eat in little bits so no one will notice any food gone--not even you."

Still another girl said she would eat anything once she started on a compulsive binge, with dry bread, lumps of sugar, and whole cinnamon sticks doing very nicely if nothing else was around.

No one could figure out why fingers were so universally used for compulsive eating. One girl said that she even drinks milk straight from the carton when she's feeling this way.

While discussing the subject at one a.m., a sophomore was busily spreading butter between countless cookies and eating them quickly. She went on to salad with dressing, and finally to sweet rolls with butter. Across from her a junior was cooking mashed potatoes with gravy, and covering toast with parsely and butter. "I wish you wouldn't talk about it while I'm eating compulsively," the junior laughed.

But this privacy was taken very seriously by others. "I definitely think that it's wrong to take something like this and make us feel self-conscious about it," said one girl. "If you feel like eating compulsively you should just go ahead and eat compulsively." Later she called such discussion "rather cruel."

Girls are not sure exactly when they eat compulsively. But some favorite times are on long car rides, just before starting to write a paper, before a large amount of studying, after coming home from a mediocre date, before going to bed, or during a long afternoon in the dormitory. A junior said she found herself eating a great deal during the week she was terribly uncertain about her academic future.

"For the last few months my roommate's been breaking up with her boyfriend," another Cliffie remarked, "and you can tell just how badly their relationship is going by how much she eats."

Some girls think that the mental emptiness caused by indecision or procrastination lies at the root of the problem. Just as their thoughts are paralyzed, so their hands become paralyzed in a mechanical gesture from plate to mouth. Once the boyfriend has been broken up with or snared, the paper begun, the field of concentration chosen, or the destination reached, food becomes unnecessary.

When Cliffies look for explanations, popular Freudian terminology occasionally creeps into the conversation. The concept of an "oral-oriented personality" links overeating to chain smoking and great talkativeness.

Womens' magazines have volunteered their own explanations. But their compulsive eaters usually weigh 250 or more, and suffer from Lack of Love, compounded geometrically by Affection for Food, and ultimately cured by Will Power. The magazines have little value for the slightly overweight college girl, who alternately stuffs and starves herself, and who spends indecently large amounts of time simply thinking about food.

Besides thinking about food inordinately, Cliffies discuss it endlessly. Many girls, especially those who are occasional compulsive eaters, can recite the calorie count of hundreds of foods. Perhaps a third of each meal-time conversation centers around the items being served. And the compulsive eaters take ghoulish pleasure in watching or hearing about the culinary indiscretions of their girlfriends.

Only girls in off-campus houses can keep large stores of food in their own refrigerators. Girls in the brick dormitories, however, show great resourcefulness in getting things to eat. Some keep fruit and cheese in shared refrigerators, cookies, crackers, and jelly in their rooms; some buy sandwiches, ice cream, and pizza from the vendors that come every evening; some gorge themselves at the regular meals; and some even break into the dormitory kitchens at night and walk off with great loads of snacks. Of course, there are always restaurants and Brighams'.

"Extremely well-bred debutantes are never compulsive eaters." The compulsive eaters who decided this went on to argue whether their affliction was very peasant-like or very bourgeois. "Then again," said one girl, "maybe we're just slobs.