"She's bringing Mrs. Garfield!" Grace whispered, horror-stricken.
Up to that time I had not been frightened, for there was nothing to be frightened about; but fear is contagious, and somehow I began to be scared myself.
Mrs. Garfield stood up in front of us with a roll of papers in her hand.
"Young ladies," she began, "I have something very serious to say to you, something which it gives me great pain to say. Your compositions have come in this morning, and your teacher has been surprised at them. She has referred the matter to me. I in my turn have been surprised."
She paused. The room was very, very still.
"I find myself driven to the conclusion that not one of these compositions has been written by a member of this class. They have been written by somebody else. They have been written by an outsider. I demand to know who has written them."
I felt very funny inside my breast. My eyes were full of tears. I looked at Mrs. Garfield standing up there, very severe, and somewhat angry, and at Miss Lucy beside her, with a bewildered expression. I looked at rows of pale little girls at their desks. I looked at Grace. Oh, it was cruel, cruel! They had never told me that I was doing wrong. I had loved them so, and given them my best, and they had all betrayed me! Even Grace! Then I thought of "The Beauty of Truth." I rose up from my seat.
"I did it, Mrs. Garfield," I confessed, brokenly. "I wrote them myself."
Then I cried, my heart breaking inside of me.
There was a rustle at the next desk.