"Tell Miss Allen not to make an announcement till the very end of the meal, so that if I get any news of the canoe, I can let her know."
But Marjorie was disappointed to find that no one came up to her with an explanation or an apology. Unfortunately, too, all the girls were present at the meal—a circumstance which left her no room for the hope that one of her school-mates had the canoe.
Just as dessert was being served, she caught Miss Allen's questioning eyes fastened upon hers, and she shook her head sadly in reply to the silent interrogation. Accordingly, the Principal arose and told Marjorie's story, and asked whether anyone had seen the canoe. But there was no response.
"Girls, I don't suspect anybody," she said, after a few minutes of silence, "but just for the sake of formality, I will call a meeting for eight o'clock this evening and ask every girl where she was early this afternoon, for Marjorie tells me that she saw it herself at one o'clock."
"Oh, Miss Allen!" interrupted Marjorie, much to everyone's consternation, "I really don't want to go as far as that! I am sure that none of the girls took it."
"Somebody might have taken it for a prank," remarked the Principal, without administering any reproof for the interruption. "And we may as well go on with the investigation."
There was not a single girl at the school who dared to absent herself from that meeting. Miss Allen herself presided, and, beginning with the senior class, she requested each girl in turn to rise and state where she had spent the early part of the afternoon.
"And whenever another girl can confirm a statement, I wish she would do so," added Miss Allen.
The meeting proceeded rapidly; the girls, a little nervous at the recital in public of their own affairs, nevertheless spoke swiftly; and, without a single exception, their statements were all confirmed by other girls.
The whole proceeding served only to intensify Marjorie's despondency. Now, she felt, the girls might think that she suspected them, which in reality had never been the case. When Miss Allen had suggested a joke, her mind naturally flew to Ruth; but now that the whole affair had assumed such serious proportions, she dismissed that solution from her thoughts.