Still Priscilla did not look at Annie.
“Where is your paper?” she asked, her eyes still glued on Mabel’s face.
Annie supplied it.
“It is a very good paper,” she said. “You won’t be at all ashamed to read it. I only trust,” she added, “that it is not too good.”
One very bitter smile crossed Priscilla’s face for a moment. Then, going on her knees, she deliberately wrote with a defiant air her own signature at the foot of the essay which Annie had dictated and Mabel had written. Mabel’s weaker handwriting signed Priscilla’s paper. Then Priscilla, gathering up the false essay, folded it within her dressing-gown, and, without glancing at either girl, left the room.
“There,” said Annie when the door had closed behind her, “isn’t she just splendid? Haven’t we managed well? Oh! I am tired and sleepy. Aren’t you, Mabel?”
“I don’t know,” said Mabel. “I am bewildered. I never knew what it was before to feel just awfully wicked.”
“You will get over that, dear. We’ll just wait a minute longer, and then we’ll creep up to our rooms. What a good thing it was that I oiled the locks! There is no fear of any one finding us out.”