“Oh, but I am sorry,” returned Miss Jewett. “She didn’t deny that she had put it in her desk, and I didn’t care to question further, for I was feeling rather hurt myself. Did you see her catch it, Betsy?”
“I saw her jump up suddenly and then I saw her pop something in her desk. I heard it running around but I didn’t know at first what it was.”
“Dear me, dear me,” murmured Miss Jewett. “I wish she had told me.”
“Miss Jewett,” said Betsy presently, “if I tell you a secret, will you promise not to let anyone know? I hate to be a telltale, but I want you to know just how fine Elizabeth really is. She would rather take the blame herself than have the real person suffer.”
“Oh dear, Betsy, that is asking a good deal. Perhaps I should not make such a promise, yet if it exonerates Elizabeth I should be glad to know. Yes, I will keep the secret.”
“I will tell you what I think and why I think it,” began Betsy, and went on to relate how she had discovered the lunch box with the nibbled cake and all the rest of it, ending up with: “It would be just like Bert to do it; he is so full of mischief. Why, last year he brought a little grass snake to school and almost frightened Miss Dunbar out of her wits by putting it on the ledge under the black-board. She caught him, though, and he had to stay in for days and days after school and learn lines and lines of something or other.”
“He deserves to be well punished now,” declared Miss Jewett, “but as we have only what is called circumstantial evidence I suppose he must escape. I am glad you told me, however, for I am pretty sure you are right, and when I see Elizabeth I shall be able to use more diplomacy. Poor Elizabeth, to think that she took it so to heart.”
“She said that it wouldn’t have seemed so terrible if you had kissed her good-bye as you always did before. She seemed to feel worse about that than anything else. She thought that meant that you had stopped loving her.”
“The blessed child, of course I haven’t stopped loving her.”
“May I tell her that you send your love to her and good-night? I can speak to her over the ’phone, you know.”