Miss Reeves hesitated. Then laying her hand on Elsie's head:
"Let it be so. For Meg's sake you shall be forgiven; for the sake of the girl whom you would have injured beyond words to tell, you shall go unpunished. This miserable incident will never be referred to again. That is all that we can do to make it up to Meg—to forgive you, Elsie, for her sake."
CHAPTER XVIII.
PEACE.
Meg was courted now by her schoolfellows; but the attention lavished upon her wounded her pride. She measured by it the contempt that had so easily accused her of thieving. To her sensitive spirit this kindness seemed insulting. It said, "We thought you a thief, and we find you are not." She responded coldly to advances made to her by all but Ursula.
The girls did not reproach Elsie; a sense of fair play kept them from referring to the diamond episode, but they shunned her. They stuck to the letter of the promised forgiveness, but they did not forget that she was a little thief. Meg watched the small figure lying apart and solitary in the play-hours—a white drift upon the bench.
Her heart bled. The child had been so caressed before, and was now an outcast. She remembered how she, too, had been neglected and shunned; but she was strong, and had never known petting, and her anger was stirred against the girls.