"It is _not_ mine," began Dora, but Mrs. Willis held up her hand.

"Allow me to speak, Miss Russell. I can best explain matters. Annie, during my absence some one has been guilty of a very base and wicked act.

One of the girls in this school has gone secretly to Dora Russell's desk and taken away ten pages of an essay which she had called 'The River,'

and which she was preparing for the prize compet.i.tion next month. Instead of Dora's essay this that you now see was put in its place. Examine it, my dear. Can you tell me anything about it?"

Annie took the ma.n.u.script-book and turned the leaves.

"Is it meant for a parody?" she asked, after a pause; "it sounds ridiculous. No, Mrs. Willis, I know nothing whatever about it; some one has imitated Dora's handwriting. I cannot imagine who is the culprit."

She threw the ma.n.u.script-book with a certain easy carelessness on the table by her side, and glanced up with a twinkle of mirth in her eyes at Dora.

"I suppose it is meant for a clever parody," she repeated; "at least it is amusing."

Her manner displeased Mrs. Willis, and very nearly maddened poor Dora.

"We have not sent for you, Annie," said her teacher, "to ask you your opinion of the parody, but to try and get you to throw light on the subject. We must find out, and at once, who has been so wicked as to deliberately injure another girl."

"But why have you sent for _me_?" asked Annie, drawing herself up, and speaking with a little shade of haughtiness.

"Because," said Dora Russell, who could no longer contain her outraged feelings, "because you alone can throw light on it--because you alone in the school are base enough to do anything so mean--because you alone can caricature."

"Oh, that is it," said Annie; "you suspect me, then. Do _you_ suspect me, Mrs. Willis?"

"My dear--what can I say?"

"Nothing, if you do. In this school my word has long gone for nothing. I am a naughty, headstrong, willful girl, but in this matter I am perfectly innocent. I never saw that essay before: I never in all my life went to Dora Russell's desk. I am headstrong and wild, but I don't do spiteful things. I have no object in injuring Dora; she is nothing to me--nothing.

She is trying for the essay prize, but she has no chance of winning it.

Why should I trouble myself to injure her? Why should I even take the pains to parody her words and copy her handwriting? Mrs. Willis, you need not believe me--I see you do not believe me--but I am quite innocent."

Here Annie burst into sudden tears, and ran out of the room.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII.

UNTRUSTWORTHY.

Dora Russell had declared, in Hester's presence, and with intense energy in her manner, that the author of the insult to which she had been exposed should be publicly punished and, if possible, expelled. On the evening of her interview with the head teacher, she had so far forgotten herself as to reiterate this desire with extreme vehemence. She had boldly declared her firm conviction of Annie's guilt, and had broadly hinted at Mrs. Willis' favoritism toward her. The great dignity, however, of her teacher's manner, and the half-sorrowful, half-indignant look she bestowed on the excited girl, calmed her down after a time. Mrs. Willis felt full sympathy for Dora, and could well understand how trying and aggravating this practical joke must be to so proud a girl; but although her faith was undoubtedly shaken in Annie, she would not allow this sentiment to appear.

"I will do all I can for you, Dora," she said, when the weeping Annie had left the room; "I will do everything in my power to find out who has injured you. Annie has absolutely denied the accusation you bring against her, and unless her guilt can be proved it is but right to believe her innocent. There are many other girls in Lavender House, and to-morrow morning I will sift this unpleasant affair to the very bottom. Go, now, my dear, and if you have sufficient self-command and self-control, try to have courage to write your essay over again. I have no doubt that your second rendering of your subject will be more attractive than the first.

Beginners cannot too often re-write their themes."

Dora gave her head a proud little toss, but she was sufficiently in awe of Mrs. Willis to keep back any retort, and she went out of the room feeling unsatisfied and wretched, and inclined for a sympathizing chat with her little friend Hester Thornton.

Hester, however when she reached her, seemed not at all disposed to talk to any one.

"I've had it all out with Mrs. Willis, and there is no doubt she will be exposed to-morrow morning," said Dora half aloud.

Hester, whose head was bent over her French history, looked up with an annoyed expression.

"Who will be exposed?" she asked, in a petulant voice.

"Oh, how stupid you are growing, Hester Thornton!" exclaimed Dora; "why, that horrid Annie Forest, of course--but really I have no patience to talk to you; you have lost all your spirit. I was very foolish to demean myself by taking so much notice of one of the little girls."

Dora sailed down the play-room to her own drawing-room, fully expecting Hester to rise and rush after her; but to her surprise Hester did not stir, but sat with her head bent over her book, and her cheeks slightly flushed.

The next morning Mrs. Willis kept her word to Dora, and made the very strictest inquiries with regard to the practical joke to which Dora had been subjected. She first of all fully explained what had taken place in the presence of the whole school, and then each girl was called up in rotation, and asked two questions: first, had she done this mischievous thing herself? second, could she throw any light on the subject.

One by one each girl appeared before her teacher, replied in the negative to both queries, and returned to her seat.

"Now, girls," said Mrs. Willis, "you have each of you denied this charge.

Such a thing as has happened to Dora could not have been done without hands. The teachers in the school are above suspicion; the servants are none of them clever enough to perform this base trick. I suspect one of you, and I am quite determined to get at the truth. During the whole of this half-year there has been a spirit of unhappiness, of mischief, and of suspicion in our midst. Under these circ.u.mstances love cannot thrive; under these circ.u.mstances the true and enn.o.bling sense of brotherly kindness, and all those feelings which real religion prompt must languish. I tell you all now plainly that I will not have this thing in Lavender House. It is simply disgraceful for one girl to play such tricks on her fellows. This is not the first time nor the second time that the school desks have been tampered with. I will find out--I am determined to find out, who this dishonest person is; and as she has not chosen to confess to me, as she has preferred falsehood to truth, I will visit her, when I do discover her, with my very gravest displeasure. In this school I have always endeavored to inculcate the true principles of honor and of trust. I have laid down certain broad rules, and expect them to be obeyed; but I have never hampered you with petty and humiliating restraints. I have given you a certain freedom, which I believed to be for your best good, and I have never suspected one of you until you have given me due cause.

"Now, however, I tell you plainly that I alter all my tactics. One girl sitting in this room is guilty. For her sake I shall treat you all as guilty, and punish you accordingly. For the remainder of this term, or until the hour when the guilty girl chooses to release her companions, you are all, with the exception of the little children and Miss Russell, who can scarcely have played this trick on herself, under punishment. I withdraw your half-holidays, I take from you the use of the south parlor for your acting, and every drawing-room in the play-room is confiscated.

But this is not all that I do. In taking from you my trust, I must treat you as untrustworthy--you will no longer enjoy the liberty you used to delight in--everywhere you will be watched. A teacher will sit in your play-room with you, a teacher will accompany you into the grounds, and I tell you plainly, girls, that chance words and phrases which drop from your lips shall be taken up, and used, if necessary, to the elucidation of this disgraceful mystery."

Here Mrs. Willis left the room, and the teachers desired the several girls in their cla.s.ses to attend to their morning studies.

Nothing could exceed the dismay which her words had produced. The innocent girls were fairly stunned, and from that hour for many a day all sunshine and happiness seemed really to have left Lavender House.

The two, however, who felt the change most acutely, and on whose altered faces their companions began to fix suspicious eyes, were Annie Forest and Hester Thornton. Hester was burdened with an intolerable sense of the shameful falsehood she had told; Annie, guilty in another matter, succ.u.mbed at last utterly to a sense of misery and injustice. Her orphaned and lonely position for the first time began to tell on her; she ate little and slept little, her face grew very pale and thin, and her health really suffered.

All the routine of happy life at Lavender House was changed. In the large play-room the drawing-rooms were unused; there were no pleasant little knots of girls whispering happily and confidentially together, for whenever two or three girls sat down to have a chat they found that one or another of the teachers was within hearing. The acting for the coming play progressed so languidly that no one expected it would really take place, and the one relief and relaxation to the unhappy girls lay in the fact that the holidays were not far off, and that in the meantime they might work hard for the prizes.

The days pa.s.sed in a truly melancholy fashion, and, perhaps, for the first time the girls fully appreciated the old privileges of freedom and trust which were now forfeited. There was a feeble little attempt at a joke and a laugh in the school at Dora's expense. The most frivolous of the girls whispered of her as she pa.s.sed as "the muddy stream;" but no one took up the fun with avidity--the shadow of somebody's sin had fallen too heavily upon all the bright young lives.

CHAPTER x.x.xIV.

BETTY FALLS ILL AT AN AWKWARD TIME.

The eight girls who had gone out on their midnight picnic were much startled one day by an unpleasant discovery. Betty had never come for her basket. Susan Drummond, who had a good deal of curiosity, and always poked her nose into unexpected corners, had been walking with a Miss Allison in that part of the grounds where the laurel-bush stood. She had caught a peep of the white handle of the basket, and had instantly turned her companion's attention to something else. Miss Allison had not observed Susan's start of dismay; but Susan had taken the first opportunity of getting rid of her, and had run off in search of one of the girls who had shared in the picnic. She came across Annie Forest, who was walking, as usual, by herself, with her head slightly bent, and her curling hair in sad confusion. Susan whispered the direful intelligence that old Betty had forsaken them, and that the basket, with its ginger-beer bottles and its stained table-cloth, might be discovered at any moment.

Annie's pale face flushed slightly at Susan's words.

"Why should we try to conceal the thing?" she said, speaking with sudden energy, and a look of hope and animation coming back to her face. "Susy, let's go, all of us, and tell the miserable truth to Mrs. Willis; it will be much the best way. We did not do the other thing, and when we have confessed about this, our hearts will be at rest."

"No, we did not do the other thing," said Susan, a queer, gray color coming over her face; "but confess about this, Annie Forest!--I think you are mad. You dare not tell."

"All right," said Annie, "I won't, unless you all agree to it," and then she continued her walk, leaving Susan standing on the graveled path with her hands clasped together, and a look of most genuine alarm and dismay on her usually phlegmatic face.

Susan quickly found Phyllis and Nora, and it was only too easy to arouse the fears of these timid little people. Their poor little faces became almost pallid, and they were not a little startled at the fact of Annie Forest, their own arch-conspirator, wishing to betray their secret.

"Oh," said Susan Drummond, "she's not out and out shabby; she says she won't tell unless we all wish it. But what is to become of the basket?"