"You know yourselves how much you are sometimes affected by quite little things. It was quite a little thing that restored Alice's lost faith in mankind. Or perhaps"—here Allison's expression lost some of its solemnity and her eyes twinkled mischievously—"I oughtn't really to call Nat little, because she's rather big—especially her hands and feet. But——"
Nat jumped visibly at the unexpected sound of her own name, and her serene, placid expression changed to one of confused amazement.
"I?" she stuttered. "What—what had I got to do with it?"
"Only that later on Mon—I mean Alice, heard how one girl in her form had stood up for her and pleaded that she should be given a chance to make a fair start. And afterwards that girl treated her—well, just as she would have treated any other girl of her acquaintance. In return Alice tried to show her gratitude, but her first venture was not very successful. She locked up one of the members of the hockey team, with the sole idea of giving her friend a chance of achieving her ambition and playing in the first eleven. But the friend was angry at the methods she used and quarrelled with her."
Then Allison related the story of the telegram in much the same words that the Principal had used in telling it to her, and when she had finished she went straight on with the adventure of the well from Monica's point of view, which, up till then, had never occurred to anyone.
When Allison had concluded there was silence for just a few minutes—the chestnuts, forgotten, burned unnoticed on the bars of the grate—then Glenda looked round the room.
"By the by, where is Monica?—for of course that's whom you mean, though you called her Alice."
But Monica had disappeared; the place which she had occupied on the outskirts of the group was vacant.
"She was here a minute ago," said someone. "She must have slipped out while we were listening to Allison," Ida suggested.
Allison rose leisurely to her feet, smoothing down the creases in her dress.