s pretty well then. Besides, Zerkwitz was continually
pestering us to tell her. I often warned Rita, and said: 'Don't
trust her,' but she was quite infatuated with Zerkwitz. Please, Frau
Direktorin, don't say anything about it to Rita's father, for he would
be frightfully upset."

Hella was simply splendid, I shall never forget. She does not want me to
write that; we are writing together. Hella thinks we must write it all
down word for word, for one never can tell what use it may be. No one
ever had a friend like Hella, and she is so brave and clever. "You are
just as clever," she says, "but you get so easily overawed, and besides
you are still quite nervous because of your mother's death. I only hope
your father won't hear anything about it." That stupid idiot dug up the
old story about the two students on the ice, a thing that was over and
done with ages ago. "You should never trust anyone," says Hella, and
she's perfectly right. I never could have believed Anneliese would be
such a sneak. We don't know yet what was up with Franke. As she came in
she put her finger to her lips, meaning of course "Betray nothing!"

June 15th. The school inspector came to-day. I was at the blackboard in
the Maths lesson, when there was a knock at the door and the head came
in with the Herr Insp. For a moment I thought he had come about _that
matter_, and I went as white as a sheet (at least the girls say I
did; Hella says I looked like Niobe mourning for her children). Thank
goodness, the sum was an easy one, and besides I can always do sums; in
Maths and French I am the best in the class. But the Herr Insp. saw that
I had tears in my eyes and said something to the head; then the head
said: "She has recently lost her mother." Then the Herr Insp. praised
me, and like a stupid idiot I must needs begin to howl. The head said:
"It's all right L., sit down," and stroked my hair. She is so awfully
sweet, and I do hope that she and Frau Doktor M. will say a word for me
at the Staff Meeting. And I do hope that Father won't hear anything of
it, for of course he would reproach me dreadfully because it all comes
so soon after Mother's death. But really it all happened long before
that. The way it all happened was that Hella's mother went away to see
Emmy, her married niece, who was _having her first baby_. And then it
was that we told the "innocent child" (that's what we call the deceitful
cat) everything. Hella still thinks that the "innocent chi