it," said little Annie Randall, a meek
timid child who rarely took a stand in anything.

"What do you know about it?" asked Edith contemptuously. And Annie
Randall was subdued.

Although most of the class received Kit back with kindly thoughts,
still the girl felt the humiliation of being doubted by others. Rather
pointed jokes were flung out in her hearing occasionally. Kit was
even-tempered and therefore able to endure it, but to Bet it was like a
lighted match to tinder. Sparks flew and sputtered while Bet told the
annoyers that Kit was worth a dozen of them, which only urged them on
to further annoyance.

But Bet's heart ached for Kit, who felt these slights more than she
would own. In the club, although someone would propose her name for
committee work, there was always a protest, until Kit begged her
friends to cease their efforts, for it only embarrassed her and kept
the subject before the class all the time.

"If we could only find the one who did it!" It was on Bet's mind
continually and finally she went to Principal Sills and talked the
matter over with him. What she suggested was a trap to catch the one
who had played such a mean trick on her friend.

"Whoever owns that book wants it back worst way or she would never have
bought it. If we put it on Miss Owens' desk, sooner or later the
guilty one will try to get it. No one else will want to touch it."

Mr. Sills was rather skeptical about the success of the plan.

"We can try it, anyway. I'm always here until after the school is
locked at night."

Miss Owens was taken into the secret between Mr. Sills and Bet, but no
one else was told about it.

"I can't even tell you Merriweather Girls," confided Bet. "But I'm
sure I'll be able to tell the whole story before long, and you'll all
be glad."

And the girls feeling sure that it had something to do with Kit's
trouble, did not urge her to confide in them.

Bet, in a quiet way, saw to it that everyone in the class knew that the
key book was on Miss Owens' desk.

And her three chums found Bet a very unsatisfactory companion for the
next few days. Every night after school she excused herself by saying
that she had to see Mr. Sills. If they could have seen her hiding away
in one of the lower grade rooms where she could see the only unlocked
door of the building they would have wondered what she was up to.

On the third afternoon she was rewarded. Just as she was about to give
up and go