"What'll be done to her?"
"Pack her back to New Zealand, I hope—and a good riddance. I always said she wasn't a suitable girl to come to this school. She hasn't the traditions of a lady. You might as well try to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear as to get such a girl to realize the meaning of noblesse oblige. It's birth that counts, after all, when it comes to the test."
"There I think you're wrong, Stephie," put in Lizzie quietly. "Gentle birth is all very well if it involves preserving a code of honour, but in itself it's no hall-mark of character. Some of the humblest and poorest people have been the stanchest on a question of right, when those above them in station have failed utterly. A charwoman can have quite as high standards as a duchess, and often lives up to them much better."
"Oh, you're a Radical!"
"I want fair play all round, and I must say that Rona has been very straight and square so far. Nobody has ever accused her of sneaking."
"No; the bear cub was unpolished, but not a vicious little beastie," agreed Addie.
"And it had grown wonderfully tame of late," added Christine.
Rona did not appear at the dinner-table; she had been removed from her own bedroom to a small spare room on another landing. She still refused to answer any question put to her. Her silence seemed unaccountable, and the Principals could only consider it as a display of temper.
"She was annoyed at being caught red-handed with the pendant in her possession, and she won't give in and acknowledge her wrongdoing," said Miss Teddington to Miss Bowes.
"From a strong hint Cook gave me last night I fear there is something more behind it all," returned her partner. "I shall question every girl in the school separately until I get at the truth."