'It will be a good way to pay her back, then,' said Peggy. 'See, I'll put it just on the top in front, where she'll find it first thing; but don't tell a soul till this afternoon, or you'll spoil all the fun.'
The two conspirators ran downstairs laughing, and were soon romping in the playground. After dinner one of the elder girls suggested rounders, and the game grew so enthralling that time flew by until the bell, ringing for afternoon school, sent the players, hot and rosy with their exertions, hurrying up the great staircase to their classrooms. As Peggy passed the door of Miss Martin's study she happened to notice Mary Hill come out of it, with a particularly red and uncomfortable look upon her face.
'What has she been doing there?' thought Peggy; but there was neither time to inquire Mary's errand nor to carry out her anticipated joke with the note-book, for the girls were taking their places, and Miss Crossland came in a moment afterwards.
She mounted the platform and rang the bell for order, but, instead of calling their names as usual, she announced:
'Girls, Miss Martin desires that you should all be present in the lecture-hall, where she wishes to address the whole school. File out in order, beginning with the top desk on the right.'
Full of astonishment, the girls marched down to the large lecture-hall, where all the classes were assembling, marshalled by their teachers. It was evidently a matter of some importance, for it was seldom indeed that lessons were interrupted in this manner. The girls kept whispering to each other under their breath:
'Whatever can it all be about? Have you heard anything? Why does she want us all here?'
But their surmises were soon put an end to by the appearance of Miss Martin herself, stately and commanding as usual, and with a grieved look on her face. She mounted the platform, and with a little sigh turned to her expectant audience.
'Girls,' she began, with an air almost of tragedy, 'a very distressing incident has happened to-day—a circumstance which in all the records of this school has never occurred before. You see this book in my hand,' and she held up (oh, luckless Peggy!) the missing note-book. 'This book of manuscript notes, which I had compiled myself from various sources, and valued greatly, I lent to be copied by the third form. It was lost, and though I caused every search to be made, I could find no trace of it. Girls, I regret to say that to-day this book has been brought back to school, and has been placed in another girl's desk—in the desk, I repeat, of an innocent girl, who had nothing to do with its loss.'
Miss Martin paused, and a wave of horror passed over the school. As for Peggy, her blood ran cold. It had never struck her before that the act of placing the book in Mary's desk could be open to such a construction. She had meant it all for a joke, and thought Mary would have been the first to join in the fun, and then Nora would, of course, have taken it back. She saw now that, while they had still been romping at rounders, Mary must have gone up to the schoolroom, and finding the missing notes in her desk, had carried them at once to the library.