When Violet looked up at her with the moonlight reflected on her little pale, childish, eager face, Biddy felt the hour for that first lie had arrived. She thought that she would do anything in the world rather than crush the love and the eager trust which shone out of Violet's eyes.
"Of course I don't crib," she was about to say; but suddenly, like a flash, she turned away.
"I'm sorry to destroy your faith in me, Vi," she said, in a would-be careless tone; "but though I have done a very 'unhonorable' thing, as you call it, I really can't tell a lie about it. I do crib, if cribbing means taking Janet's help when I learn my lessons."
The faint roses which Violet wore in her cheeks faded out of them.
"I'm awfully sorry for you," she said. "I didn't believe it a bit when Alice said it; I wouldn't believe it now from anyone but yourself. There's the doll back again, Biddy; I—I can't keep it, Biddy."
She pushed the waxen beauty into Bridget's arms, and rushed back to the house.
CHAPTER XII. LADY KATHLEEN.
For the past week, Janet May had managed, through her tact and cleverness, to make Bridget's life quite comfortable to her. She had shown her a way in which she could obey the rules and yet not feel the fetters. She imparted to Bridget some of that strange and fatal secret which leads to death in the long run, but which at first shows many attractions to its victims. Bridget might live at the school, and have a very jolly, and even independent time; all she had to do was to obey the letter and break the spirit.