“Not bottles!”
“Bottles. When I’d smelt them all—some very queer—what else was there to take your mind off those pictures but to try on her things?”
The three-minute bell began to ring, and Hildegarde went back to the school-room.
Bella did not reappear among her kind for twenty-four hours. Some said she’d already gone home. Others said no, she was waiting till her mother came for her. Certainly Miss MacIver made no sign; but her cold seemed better.
Upon resuming her place the next day, Bella, still with her nose in the air, publicly announced that she had begged Miss MacIver’s pardon.
“How did they make you do it?” Hildegarde asked the little girl at recess.
The wicked Miss Wayne was again sitting solitary on the stone steps among the shrubbery at the back, holding on her knees a new slate, the lower part covered with neat little figures—the upper elegantly decorated with dragons.
“Nobody made me,” answered Bella, while she carefully shaded the scaly coil on the monster’s tail. “The door was a little bit open—Miss MacIver’s door—and I saw her packing up. Then she looked out and caught me peeking at her.”
“Heavens!” breathed Hildegarde, so overcome she sat down. “What happened then?”