“I—I—”
Robin Hurst sat up in bed, her hair a vivid flame round her pale face.
“Oh, Ruby doesn’t know anything about it, Miss Stone,” she said, her voice faintly bored. “I did it all. None of the others had anything to do with it.”
Joyce, Betty, and Annette bobbed up with Jack-in-the-box effect.
“We were in it too, Miss Stone!”
“That’s not true!” flashed Robin. “I took them by myself.”
Miss Stone surveyed them bitterly.
“I had guessed you were at the bottom of it, Robin Hurst,” she said. “No other girl in the school would lower herself by the actions in which you find pleasure. I warned you last week—this time I shall certainly make an example of you. Do not go into school in the morning; you may come to my study at half-past-nine!” She swept majestically from the room, leaving silence and consternation behind her.
CHAPTER II
NEXT DAY
The school hummed in the morning. Before breakfast it was known that a row transcending all other rows had occurred in the night, and that Robin Hurst, who had figured in so many scrapes before, was liable to “catch it” this time with unexampled severity. Fearful stories of the wrath of Miss Stone circulated among the juniors. It was reported that she had fallen into a basket of stolen cream-puffs, rising in a condition of messiness and fury most terrifying to contemplate. That Robin had been foolish enough to laugh at the wrong moment was readily believed—it was the kind of lunatic thing that Robin would do. As to her punishment, the school palpitated amid the wildest guesses. Expulsion was hinted at by a few, since ordinary penalties seemed feeble, considering Miss Stone’s anger. The whole dormitory was to suffer—except Ruby Bennett, who, having instigated the crime, had refused to share in its fruits. Ruby found herself ostentatiously cold-shouldered.