“No, it isn’t!” snapped her daughter.
“Yes it is, Hes,” said Mrs. Grimes, and she took the proffered veil from Laura’s hand.
“’Taint, either, Ma!” cried Hester.
“I hope I know my own veil, Hessie Grimes. This is it. Where did you find it, Laura?” asked the butcher’s wife.
“I found it where Hester left it,” said Laura, quietly, and looking straight into the other girl’s face. “It was the night the M. O. R.’s went to Robinson’s Woods.”
“There! what did I tell you, Hes?” exclaimed the unsuspecting lady. “I knew you lost it that night. I’m a thousand times obliged, Laura. I don’t suppose you would have known it was mine if you hadn’t heard me hollering about it?” and she laughed, comfortably. “I do shout, that’s a fact. But Laws! it got me back my veil this time, didn’t it?”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Laura, unsmilingly. “And Hester! Monday morning Miss Carrington will want to speak to you before school.”
She turned back without any further explanation to the culprit. She knew that she could make this unveiling of Hester’s meanness do Bobby Hargrew a good turn. Hester must admit to Miss Carrington that she had told a falsehood when she said she saw Bobby throw something in the principal’s wastebasket. If Hester would not make this reparation Laura was determined to make public what Hester had done to her in the haunted house.
CHAPTER XXIV—THE FIRST FIELD DAY
The girls of Central High had looked forward to this open-air exhibition of dancing and field athletics with great expectations. The pretty folk dances were enjoyed by the girl pupils of Central High in assembly. All of the girls who were physically able were expected to take part in such exercises, and Mrs. Case had trained her classes, separately and together, in several of the Morris dances, in the Maypole dance of England, and in the Italian Tarantella.