Her voice was sharp, and her eyes fixed full on Rona.
"I didn't touch them. I never laid so much as a finger on them," protested the Cuckoo.
"But you told someone where they were?"
Rona winked in reply. Yes, alas! winked consciously and deliberately. (It was well for her that Miss Moseley was not in the room.)
"I knew you'd got something there," she admitted. "Were you such an innocent as to think I never saw you scribbling away hard in the early mornings? Why, I was foxing! I used to watch you while I was snoring, and nearly died with laughing because you never found me out."
If eyes could slay, Ulyth's would have finished Rona at that moment. But Addie Knighton, whose suspension of mirth had been merely a species of temporary paralysis, now relapsed into a choking series of guffaws, in which the others joined boisterously.
"I can't—get—over—seaweed—and faded gooseberries!" crowed Addie hysterically.
"I don't catch flies with my open mouth!" shouted Mary Acton, suspending her knitting in her indignation.
"Will somebody please measure the twins' waists?" bleated Christine.
"I didn't say it was meant for any of you. If the cap fits, put it on. Listeners hear no good of themselves, and no more do people who read what isn't intended for them. It serves you all right, so there!" and Ulyth flounced out of the room.