Again Hattie gave a triumphant little laugh, and putting her hand into her pocket drew out the mat,—that is, a mat.
Gracie seized it eagerly, gave Hattie a kiss, saying, "Oh, you dear thing! I'm so glad."
Then she looked for the stain, but there was no stain to be seen.
"Where's that ink-spot? Oh, Hattie, did you take it out? There's not a sign of it."
"No," said Hattie, "I did not take it out."
"Why!" exclaimed Gracie, turning the mat over. "Why, it is—it is—it's not mine. It's Nellie's mat!"
"I'm going to tell you," said Hattie. "This morning Miss Ashton handed me your history, which I believe you left in the cloak-room yesterday, and told me to put it in your desk. So when I opened the desk, the first thing I saw was the mat, and I knew you must have forgotten it. Nellie, the mean thing, she had brought her mat to school to-day again, and said she was going to work on it in recess; but when recess came the other children coaxed her to go out in the garden 'cause it was so pleasant, and she went. So while they were all down there, I saw the way to play Miss Nellie a good trick and to help you, dear; and I ran up to the school-room, changed Nellie's mat for yours, put hers back just as she had left it, and she'll never know the difference and think that somehow that ink-spot has come on her mat. And do you know, Gracie, it was the most fortunate thing that Nellie had just worked those two rows more that made her work even with yours; so she never can know. You remember yesterday we could scarcely tell them apart, and now they look almost exactly alike."
"But what then?" said Gracie, almost frightened at the thought of Hattie's probable meaning.
"Why, don't you see?" said Hattie, who told her story as if she thought she had done something very clever and praiseworthy; "you can just finish this mat as if it was your own, and need not bother yourself about the ink-stain."
"But—but—Hattie—this one is Nellie's," said Gracie in a shocked voice.