"Girls," rebuked Mrs. Weatherbee sharply, "this is hardly a time for laughter. Miss Stearns, do you or do you not deny that you and Miss Allen held the conversation Miss Seaton accuses you of holding?"
"Of course we did," cheerfully answered Judith, her mirthful features sobering.
"Then you——"
"We were in the dressing room on the night of the freshman frolic when it took place," broke in Jane. "May I ask where you were, Miss Seaton, when you overheard it?"
Jane's gray eyes rested scornfully upon Marian as she flashed out her question.
"I—I wasn't anywhere," snapped Marian. "I—someone else overheard it."
"Then 'someone else' should have taken pains to learn the truth before spreading malicious untruth," tensely condemned Jane.
Turning to the matron, she said bitterly:
"Mrs. Weatherbee, this whole story is simply spite-work; nothing else. When I have explained the true meaning of Judith's and my talk together in the dressing-room, you will understand everything. Judith's fatal failing is not kleptomania. It's merely absent-mindedness."
Rapidly Jane narrated the incident of the missing white lace gown, belonging to Edith Hammond, in which herself, Judith and Norma had figured in the previous year. She finished with: