was then framed in the
ominous black lining of the police patrol.

It had been jealousy ever since. Dorothy had made friends with the
best girls in Glenwood, she had been taken up by the teachers, she had
been given the best part in the play (but Viola could not stand that)
and now that the play had been abandoned on account of the death of
Mrs. Panghorn's father, and that Dorothy had been disgraced, what more
did Viola crave?

Was not her vengeance complete?

But the girls were beginning to doubt the story, and those who did not
actually disbelieve it were tiring of its phases. The promised
excitement did not develop. All the plans of the Rebs were dead, and
to be a member of that party did not mean happiness,--it meant actual
danger of discipline.

Viola was too shrewd not to notice all this, and to realize that her
clientele was falling off alarmingly.

Would she really leave Glenwood? The wrong done Dorothy seemed to be
righting itself in spite of all her devices, and that girl, disgraced
though she stood in the eyes of many, seemed happier at the moment than
Viola herself.

"I wish I had gone home when I had father's last letter," reflected the
girl, looking in her mirror at the traces of grief that insisted on
setting their stamp upon her olive face. "But now, of course that old
cat Higley will make a fuss--Oh, I wish I never had seen these cracked
walls. I wish I had gone to a fashionable school--"

She stopped suddenly. Why not get away now to that swell school near
Boston? She could surely set aside her mother's foolish sentiment
about Glenwood,--just because she had met Mrs. Pangborn abroad and had
become interested in this particular school for girls.

Viola had enough of it. She would leave--go home. And then
perhaps--she might get to the Beaumonde Academy.

CHAPTER XXI

SUNSHINE AGAIN

A sense of suppressed excitement greeted Dorothy as she entered the
classroom. Edna and Molly managed to greet her personally with a
pleasant little nod, and even Miss Higley raised her eyes to say good
morning.

Certainly Dorothy felt heroic--and she had good reason. Having
suffered so long from a mysterious insult, she now had fortified
herself against its stigma.

At the same time she was conscious of an awful weight hanging over her
head--like the gloom of those who suffer without hope.

"She just looks like a sweet nun," whispered Ned to Amy.

"Doesn't she," agreed Amy. "I wish we