two
together, without anybody noticing that she had done so. She put the
crumpled note with her handkerchief into her pocket, and went on with
her examination, determined to sift the affair afterwards, and to take
up the cudgels boldly on Patty's account. At eleven o'clock all papers
were tied and handed in to Miss Rowe, and the girls filed out of the
room. Enid saw Muriel glance cautiously at the floor under Patty's desk,
as if searching for her note, and laughed to herself to think that she
had already secured it.

"Are you looking for anything?" she asked, meaningly.

"Oh, dear, no!" returned Muriel. "At least, I thought I'd dropped a
piece of indiarubber; but it doesn't matter, I've two or three others."

Enid waited a moment to let her pass, then, following, found all the
class collected in a group outside the pantry door, talking over the
examination and comparing the answers to the sums.

"What have you got for No. 5, Vera?" said Kitty Harrison. "Wasn't it a
most horribly difficult one?"

"Dreadful! I couldn't do it at all. I got my statements in such a
muddle, I had to leave it."

"What's your answer, Muriel?" asked Cissie Gardiner.

"270 bales of silk, but I don't believe it's right."

"Most of the others have 340 bales."

"Which others?"

"Why, Patty Hirst, and Beatrice Wynne, and Ella Johnson. Patty has most
of her sums right, I think."

"She may well have," sneered Maud Greening, "if she copies other
people's," she added under her breath.

"I don't even look at anyone else when I'm working," observed Muriel,
pointedly.

"We've never had cheating in the Upper Fourth before," put in Vera
Clifford.

"It's only the kind of thing one might expect, though," said Kitty
Harrison. "Some people aren't as particular as we are."

Poor Patty, who was standing near, flushed red with indignation at these
imputations, but did not know how to defend herself. Enid, however, flew
to the rescue.

"Look here!" she cried. "If you've anything you want to say, I wish
you'd say it straight out, instead of these back shots. If you think
Patty was trying to cheat this morning, I can tell you you're much
mistaken."

"Oh! you've taken up Patty Hirst," said Maud, "and of course you say
she's always in the right. I'm afraid it's no use your trying to make
excuses for her."

"I don't want to," declared Enid. "I only want the truth, and Muriel
knows perfectly well that it was mostly her fault."

"I don't know any