“Probably they’re going to expel me this time,” thought the victim of previous injustice. “I don’t care. It’s the meanest school in New York, anyway!”

She ascended the stairs slowly, “standing with reluctant feet” at the threshold of the Misses Larneds’ sanctum a moment before she knocked.

Opening the door at the permission to do so, she saw an amazing sight. There were both the august sisters sitting as if in judgment, flanked by Miss Arnold, the English teacher. There were Gwen and Jan flushed, trembling, plainly quivering with excitement. And—most wonderful of all—there was Daisy Hammond dissolved in tears, looking “as though she could not look anywhere,” as Gladys said afterward.

“Ahem! Miss Gladys Graham, we have sent for you,” began the elder Miss Larned, portentously. “We have learned that we were mistaken in thinking you guilty of a shocking action, in punishment of which you were deprived—as we supposed justly and with full cognizance on your part of the cause of our decision—of your part in the Christmas play. We have but just learned that you were absolutely guiltless of the offense.”

“I told you I hadn’t done anything, and I didn’t know what made you pounce on me,” said Gladys, so embarrassed by this flood of Johnsonian English, of which she did not understand half the words, as well as perturbed by the fact dawning on her that instead of being expelled she was being reinstated, that she expressed herself with inelegant brevity.

At another time Gladys’s “pounce” would not have passed unreproved. As it was, Miss Larned resumed what her pupils disrespectfully called “her language.”

“A letter fell into our hands, purporting to be written by you, on a certain imported paper which you alone possessed,” Miss Larned continued. Gladys started, and looked at Jan, who nodded significantly. “The letter proposed a course disgraceful in itself and injurious to the school. Miss Hammond was supposed to have been the recipient, and she had indignantly repudiated what was apparently your base proposition. We have discovered that Miss Hammond was the sole author of the letter; that by apparent accident she contrived it should fall into our hands. Her motive was envy of your superior part in the coming play and the desire to have you deprived of it, knowing that, if this were to happen, she would be assigned the part in your stead. Her plot has been so far successful. But for your cousin, Miss Howe, the true culprit would not have been discovered. Actuated by firm faith in your innocence, as well as affection, she has devoted herself to discovering the truth. Chance put into her hands the clue of what we intended—charitably to you—to retain a secret. She has worked upon that clue very cleverly, and, armed with her proofs, laid the case before us this morning. Miss Hammond, seeing the futility of doing so, has attempted no extenuation of her wrong, but confesses it fully. We therefore restore to you our confidence and regard, expressing also our regret that you have undergone this trial, which will doubtless be beneficial to you, nevertheless. And we also request that you once more assume the rôle of the princess in the play. Your sister and your cousin will resume their parts if this arrangement pleases you.”

Gladys was sustained from actual collapse by the formality of this lengthy address, but she was dreadfully upset, and had great difficulty in murmuring her agreement to this arrangement. Miss Larned, seeing that she was overwhelmed by the revelations so suddenly poured forth upon her, graciously arose and held out her hand in amicable dismissal.

“We will excuse you, Miss Gwendoline and Miss Gladys Graham, from attendance on your classes to-day. You, too, Miss Howe, may be excused. And you, Miss Hammond, will hardly be in a fit condition mentally to apply yourself. You will, therefore, keep holiday to-day, reporting at the usual hour to-morrow. And I need not say, I trust, that as this melancholy affair was preserved a secret when Miss Graham was supposed to be the guilty one, so it will be close guarded now that we have learned who is really culpable, much more culpable, I regret to say, than we had thought Miss Graham in the first instance. You will not mention to any of your mates, young ladies, the matters which have been discussed, the facts which have transpired in this room this morning.” Miss Larned, Miss Agatha Larned, and Miss Arnold bowed to the four girls, who found themselves in the hall they hardly knew how.

Daisy Hammond, sobbing bitterly, held out her hand to Gladys, but she put both her hands behind her back with a movement of aversion. “No, Daisy Hammond,” she said decidedly. “I don’t say I won’t forgive you sometime, but I won’t do it now. Gwen was right about you, and I never, never will go with you again. I wouldn’t have minded anything else, because we were chums, and I never was better than you were. But I couldn’t do anything like what you did. To write a letter and pretend it was mine, and use the paper I gave you for it, and then write an answer to it yourself, and let me be put out of the play and disgraced, and never say one word! And pretend every minute you were my friend, and so sorry for me that they could hardly tease you into playing the princess—oh, my! I never heard of such a humbug! No, sir, Daisy, we’re never friends again as long as I live. And I’m dreadfully sorry—it’s the worst thing I ever heard of—you’re a regular Benedict Arnold!” And with which parting shot, drawn from her slender armory of historical lore, Gladys turned away forever from her treacherous friend, her head held high, but with tears running down her cheeks.