Marcia said nothing. One after another the girls filed out, until she and the teacher were alone together. Then Miss Burnett unfolded the paper and turned to the girl before her.
"This essay is signed with your name, Marcia, in the sealed envelope that was kept in my desk until the judges' decision had been reached. No one knew who had written it. No one knows now, except myself. I have not even mentioned the title, The River Road, until I had talked with you alone. Did you talk with anyone else about your essay? You know I wished them to be entirely original."
"No, Miss Burnett, I never said a word to anybody about it," said Marcia, quite truthfully.
Miss Burnett looked grave and troubled. "Then it is very peculiar, Marcia, that your essay has nearly the same title as Rosalind's, and says the same thing, only in different words. How could that be, unless you talked over your essays together?"
"But we did not, truly, Miss Burnett. It just happened so." Marcia looked the teacher straight in the face, as if defying her to find a flaw in her statement. "Rosalind lost her book, and borrowed mine. Then she went out to play basketball without returning it. I had to borrow Alison's book to study for mine. She said she found the essay in it when she opened it to study. That is all I can tell you."
If there were any guile in this speech, Miss Burnett was too transparently honest herself to find it out. She looked troubled.
"Well, Marcia, it is very strange, but I must take your word for it. That is all, then."
Thanksgiving had come and gone, and the girls were settled down for the uneventful stretch that comes between Thanksgiving and Christmas. The seven friends were gathered in Alison's room, one raw, cold "Novemberish" afternoon for one of their old-time talks. Marcia had gone out shopping with Rosalind, for whom she seemed to have developed a sudden great friendship, and the girls had availed themselves of the opportunity to meet in their favorite gathering place without the embarrassment of her presence.
Polly had a question to propound.
"Why don't we like Marcia?"