“There is no proverb that says so,” I replied; “beside, you have proved nothing. If all that you say is true—and I don’t mind telling you, Cynthia Vaughn, that I am not entirely sure of that—if what you say is true, you are as deep in the mud as Winnie is in the mire.”
“You think Winnie a saint!” Cynthia sneered. “You don’t half know her. Before she came to room in the Amen Corner, and we were both in the Hornets Nest up under the eaves, she was the Queen Hornet of all. There was nothing which she would not dare to do, from letting down bouquets in her scrap-basket to the cadet band when they serenaded us, to bribing the janitor to let her slip out at night and buy goodies at the corner grocery for our spreads. She was a regular case, and her pet name all over the school was:
‘The malicious, seditious, insubordinate,
Disreputable, sceptical Queen of the Hornets.’”
“We know all that,” I replied, “but there are some things which Winnie could not do. She could not tell a lie, and she could not steal.”
“I don’t know about that,” Cynthia continued coldly. “She comes from an uncertain sort of Bohemian ancestry. You know her mother was an actress and her father a playwright.”
Cynthia told this with great triumph, evidently thinking that we had never heard it.
“Madame told us,” I replied, “that Mrs. De Witt was a very lovely woman, who only acted in her husband’s plays; that she made it her life purpose to realize and explain her husband’s ideals: and that he wrote the part of the heroine especially to suit her, so that their creations were among the most charming that have ever been presented on the stage. They were devoted to one another, and when she died his heart was broken. He does not write plays any more, but articles for encyclopædias, which is an extremely respectable profession.”
“And you dared prejudice this Mr. Mudge against our own precious Winnie,” Milly continued. “You are just the meanest girl, Cynthia Vaughn, that ever lived! But you never can make any one believe anything against her. If, as Tib says, it lies between you two, we all know who is the more likely to have done it.”
Cynthia turned green. “Do you dare to accuse me?” she hissed.
“No, Milly; don’t do that,” I cried warningly, and the overwrought girl burst into a flood of tears and threw herself into my arms. “We accuse no one,” I said to Cynthia. “I trust that you have been equally cautious with Mr. Mudge.”