"You're in for it, Beth!" whispered another. "Old Primmy's seen your picture!"
Miss Gordon's deep gray eyes took on a look of mock terror. She went out with bent head and a comical air of abject humility that left the room in a titter. The "Moderns" teacher frowned. Miss Gordon was irrepressible.
Nevertheless, when she found herself passing down the wide echoing hall alone, the young lady was seized with misgivings. For which of her misdemeanors was she to be arraigned this time? There was that dreadful caricature she had drawn of the Principal—the one with the shining expanse of bald head towards which swarms of flies and mosquitoes, bearing skates and toboggans and hockey-sticks, were hurrying gayly, while upon poor old Dr. Primrose's one tuft of hair shone the conspicuous sign, "This way to the Great Slide."
Now, what on earth had she done with that picture? Oh, yes, Horace Oliver had borrowed it to show to Parker Raymond. Perhaps Park had lost it—he was such a careless fellow—and Dr. Primrose had found it! And there was that poem, too, the one on little Mr. Kelly, the Science Master. It was a long, lugubrious effusion, telling of the search by a heart-broken chemistry class for a beloved teacher, who had unaccountably disappeared. It described them as wandering about weeping pitifully, looking into desks and ink-bottles, and under books; until at last they discovered to their horror that a careless girl had dropped her pen-wiper upon him and smothered him! That poem had circulated through the class, causing much merriment. And where was it now? The poetess could not remember. Suppose someone had dropped it and Mr. Kelly had found it? He was so small, and so sensitive about his size. No wonder Miss Gordon went very slowly to the Principal's room.
Usually her days were all unalloyed joy. High School, except for occasional skirmishes with troublesome teachers, was a delight. For Elizabeth Gordon had arrived at a place in life where one could have a good time without hurting anyone; there was so much fun in the world, laughter was so easy—and nobody seemed ever to be in trouble any more. Even as she tapped at the door beyond which probable retribution lay, she smiled at the nodding lilac bush with its bunch of amethyst blossoms that waved a greeting to her from the open window. Miss Gordon's mind was prone to wander thus from the subject in hand to such sights, her teachers often found. The song of a yellow warbler in the school maples, the whirl of scarlet leaves across the window pane, or the gleam of snow on the far-off hilltops, would drive away every item of knowledge concerning the value of (a+b)2 or the characteristics of a parallelogram.
The door swung suddenly open and the Principal's bald head shot into view. His eyes were stern. Evidently he had come in war and not in peace.
"Ah, Miss Gordon!" he said, briskly. "Yes, Miss Gordon! Just step this way a minute!"
He held open the door and Miss Gordon stepped in, leaving all her courage on the other side. She slipped sideways into a chair and looked up at him with scared attention. Evidently it was the picture.
"Miss Gordon," said the Principal, seating himself in his revolving chair, which creaked in a way that reminded Miss Gordon horribly of stories of the guillotine, "I am making out the list of those whom I consider competent to write on the final examinations, and I feel it my duty to notify you that I cannot see my way clear to include your name."
Elizabeth fairly crumpled up in her chair. This was awful—the thing she had most feared had come upon her at last. She sat speechless.