"Do you mean to say you won't tell us?"
"I never break my word."
Gwendolen laughed.
"We're five against one, and the youngest is as big as you," she said, half in fun, half menacing.
Millie smiled her own little smile of disdain.
"I'm more than a match for the lot of you," she said coolly. "I shall say just what I think to you, as I did to Aunt Minna. And it's this. I hate underhand ways."
Miss Lathom, who was seemingly poring over the correction of some exercises, grew uncomfortably red.
"We're not underhand," said Gwen hotly. "'Tommy'"—indicating her preceptress with a wave of the hand—"knows all about our goings on."
"Tommy" looked up nervously.
"When you have lived here a little while, Miss Lutwyche," she said, "you will see that the poor girls must have some indulgences. Their mother expects impossibilities."