Self-blame doesn’t tend toward anybody’s good nature and the head of Oak Knowe School for Young Ladies had been sorely tried. Also, her offense had come from the very girl she trusted most and was, therefore, the more difficult to forgive. So clothing herself in all her dignity, she was simply the Lady Principal and nothing more, when for a second time the quiet of her domain was broken by the honk-honk of an automobile, the door opened and Dorothy and Robin walked in. The doctor had laughingly declared that he couldn’t enter with them—he was afraid! But though it was really only lack of time that prevented him so doing, their own spirits were now so low that they caught the infection of his remark—if not his spirit—and visibly trembled.
This was a sign of guilt and caught Miss Muriel’s eye at once.
“What is the explanation of this, Dorothy? Robin?”
Dorothy had been pondering that explanation on the swift ride home. Dr. Winston had called them the Good Samaritans and seemed pleased with them. Maybe Miss Muriel would think so, too.
“We stayed to see—we had to be what he said. Good little Samaritans—”
“Humph! If that is some new game you have invented, please never to play it again. Your duty—”
“Why, Lady Principal, you wouldn’t have us ‘pass by on the other side,’ would you? To-morrow’s lesson—”
But there was no softening in Miss Muriel’s eye, and indignant Robin flashed out:
“Well—well—you needn’t blame her. You needn’t blame a girl—when it was all my fault! I coaxed her or she wouldn’t ha’ done it!”