A Pair of Schoolgirls Part 15

"What are you doing at my desk?" she asked sharply.

No girls were ever so hopelessly caught. Hope remained with the photograph in her hand, staring speechlessly; Blanche tried to shuffle away, Valentine looked sulky, and Irene--always ready for tears--pulled out her pocket-handkerchief.

"Who has drawn this picture on the blackboard?" continued Miss Pitman.

"Hope--Hope did it! It wasn't any of us!" snivelled Irene, trying to thrust the brunt of the affair on to her friend's shoulders.

Miss Pitman gave Hope a scathing glance, under which the girl quailed.

"An extremely clever way of showing her talent for drawing, no doubt,"

remarked the mistress sarcastically. "I shall be obliged if someone will clean the board."

Several officious hands at once clutched the duster and erased the offending portrait. Miss Pitman walked to her desk, closed the lid, locked it, and put the key in her pocket.

"It is superfluous to tell you what I think of you," she said. "Miss Tempest will have to hear about this."

"Well, Hope's done for with Miss Pitman, at any rate," said Bertha Warren to Addie Parker, when the outraged mistress had taken her departure, and the four sinners had fled downstairs.

"Yes, there'll be no more favouring now--and a good thing, too! It was time Miss Pitman's eyes were opened. Will she really tell Miss Tempest?"

"Serve them right if she does. I'm waiting for developments."

There was not long to wait. At two o'clock, Hope, Blanche, Irene, and Valentine received a summons to the study, and after a ten minutes'

interview with the head mistress came away with red eyes.

"Have you heard the news?" said Noelle Kennedy presently. "There's been a most tremendous storm--a regular blizzard--in the study. Miss Tempest has been ultra-tempestuous, and Hope and the others have come out just wrecks."

"What's the matter?" enquired some of the girls who had not heard of the occurrence in the cla.s.sroom.

"Hope found Miss Pitman's desk unlocked, and she and Irene and Val and Blanche were calmly turning over the contents when Pittie popped into the room and caught them. Then the squalls began. They had to report themselves in the study, and it turned out that there was something else against Hope and Blanche. I don't know who gave them away, but somebody had been telling Miss Tempest that they were at the wedding that day.

She charged them with it, and was simply furious because they hadn't owned up when she asked the cla.s.s."

"I can tell you who told her," volunteered Margaret Parker. "It was Professor Schenk. He saw them there, and he happened to mention it this morning."

"Well, Miss Tempest was fearfully stern. She said Hope wasn't fit to be Warden, and to represent the Lower School, if she'd no more idea of honour than that. She's taken away the Wardens.h.i.+p from her. She says it's not to be decided by election again--she's going to choose a girl for herself."

"Whom has she chosen?"

"Grace Russell," said Ruth Harmon, who at that moment joined the group.

"It's just been put up on the notice board."

"Well, I'm glad. Grace will make a good Warden."

"Yes, there's something solid about Grace. She never lets herself be carried away."

"Hope will be crestfallen."

"Never mind--it will do Hope Lawson good to find she's not the most important person in the Form."

"I say," interposed Noelle, "isn't this a good opportunity to put in a word for Dorothy? She owned up when Hope didn't, so Miss Tempest ought to remember that. Let us strike while the iron is hot, and go to the study now."

"Right you are! Where are Mavie and Doris? I'm sure they'll come too."

Dorothy's champions walked boldly into the study, and put their case so successfully to Miss Tempest that she condescended to consider it.

Perhaps, as Noelle suspected, she thought she had given too severe a punishment, and was ready to remit it. In the end, she consented to forgive, not only Dorothy, but her companions in misfortune also, granting all six permission to enter the gymnasium again.

"It's a complete turning of the tables," said Ruth, as the girls returned triumphantly from their mission. "Dorothy's free, and Hope and Blanche will have to stay in the cla.s.sroom and do their share of penance."

"Then they'll be out of rehearsals."

"Of course they will."

"And who's to take Becky Sharp?"

"I vote for Dorothy."

"So do I. She deserves it."

"Where is she? Let's take her her order of release."

The events of that day had an effect upon the Upper Fourth in more ways than one. Perhaps Miss Pitman had learnt a lesson, for in future she accepted no presents at all from her pupils, not even flowers, and showed special favour to n.o.body. The Form liked her much better now that she was more impartial.

"I can't stand a teacher who pets one girl and snubs another," said Ruth. "It isn't just, and one has a right to expect justice from one's Form mistress."

Grace Russell was a decided success as Warden. She was not the cleverest girl in the Upper Fourth by any means, but she was one of the oldest, and she had a strong sense of duty. She kept the rules scrupulously herself, and discouraged all the s.h.i.+rkings that had come in under Hope's regime. It was wonderful how rapidly most of the girls responded to her influence, and how soon the Form began to take a better tone.

Hope was very quiet and subdued after her deposition, till one day she caught Dorothy in the dressing-room.

"You're a mean sneak, Dorothy Greenfield!" she began hotly. "You promised on your honour you wouldn't tell Miss Tempest we'd been at the wedding, and yet you went and did it!"

"I didn't!" declared Dorothy, with equal heat. "I kept my promise absolutely. I never told a single soul."

"What's the quarrel?" said Margaret Parker.

"Why, Dorothy had seen Blanche and me at that wretched wedding--I wish we'd never gone!--and she promised she wouldn't tell, and then she must have done--I'm certain it was she!"

"It was Professor Schenk who told Miss Tempest," replied Margaret. "I know, because Beatrice Schenk said so. Do you mean to say you let Dorothy own up about that business, and then expected her to keep quiet about your share of it? It's you who are the sneak. Dorothy tell, indeed! We know her better than that. She flies into rages, but she'd scorn to get anybody into trouble at head-quarters. I think she's been a trump."

The feeling of the Form at present was decidedly in Dorothy's favour.

Schoolgirl opinion veers round quickly, and a companion who is unpopular one week may be a heroine the next. Margaret Parker was so indignant at Hope's conduct that she published abroad the story of the promise, and the general verdict was that Dorothy had shown up very well in the affair.

"I don't believe I'd have kept such a secret and let Hope get off scot-free," said Ruth Harmon, "especially when she was being so rude; but I'm not quixotic, so that makes the difference."

After this the rehearsals in the gymnasium went on briskly. It was growing near Christmas, and there was still much to be done to perfect the performance. Dorothy threw herself with enthusiasm into the part of Becky Sharp; she did it to the life, and defied Miss Pinkerton with special zeal.

"She does it almost too well. I wish Miss Tempest could see her!"