"You should have asked permission," she said stiffly. "I cannot have such disorders. I will punish you when we return to school!"
Just as if the lost chocolates were not punishment enough.
The deed and the reprimand travelled along the line, whispered from mouth to mouth, till it came to Dot.
"That silly Alma Montague," the whisper ran, "has just broken line to give her money to that little beggar girl. She gave a shilling. She was going to buy chocolate nougats. Miss Arnott's going to punish her."
Dot's sensitive soul shuddered over the terrible Betty. If she had been looking up instead of down! If she had rushed forward and claimed her before the eyes of the wondering school! If Miss Arnott had known! If Alma Montague had known! If any one of all those thirty girls had even guessed!
The very possibility was so dreadful that Dot found herself unable to discuss fashion for all the rest of that constitutional.
But later on in the day, in the evening, when the lamps were alight, she had crept away by herself to wonder where madcap Betty was. She felt quite sure she would go home again quite safely, she was always doing terrible things without any harm coming to her.
The tears that fell from Dot's eyes were not for Betty, but altogether for herself. She had disowned, by not owning, her sister! She had been afraid to step forward before those thirty pairs of eyes and say, "This is my sister!" And she felt as one guilty of a mean and dishonourable deed.
"I will tell every girl in the school in the morning," she said; and then, as her repentance increased: "I will tell them to-night."
And to her credit be it spoken, she descended to the schoolroom and weepingly told her story.