," said Miss Wilson,
concentrating her resentment by an effort to suppress it, "that Miss
Wylie has ignored all the opportunities that have been made for her to
reinstate herself here. Mrs. Miller and I have waived merely personal
considerations, and I have only required a simple acknowledgment of this
offence against the college and its rules."

"I do not care that for Mrs. Miller," said Agatha, snapping her fingers.
"And you are not half so good as I thought."

"Agatha," said Mr. Jansenius, "I desire you to hold your tongue."

Agatha drew a deep breath, sat down resignedly, and said: "There! I have
done. I have lost my temper; so now we have all lost our tempers."

"You have no right to lose your temper, Miss," said Mr. Jansenius,
following up a fancied advantage.

"I am the youngest, and the least to blame," she replied. "There
is nothing further to be said, Mr. Jansenius," said Miss Wilson,
determinedly. "I am sorry that Miss Wylie has chosen to break with us."

"But I have not chosen to break with you, and I think it very hard that
I am to be sent away. Nobody here has the least quarrel with me except
you and Mrs. Miller. Mrs. Miller is annoyed because she mistook me for
her cat, as if that was my fault! And really, Miss Wilson, I don't know
why you are so angry. All the girls will think I have done something
infamous if I am expelled. I ought to be let stay until the end of the
term; and as to the Rec--the fault book, you told me most particularly
when I first came that I might write in it or not just as I pleased, and
that you never dictated or interfered with what was written. And yet the
very first time I write a word you disapprove of, you expel me. Nobody
will ever believe now that the entries are voluntary."

Miss Wilson's conscience, already smitten by the coarseness and absence
of moral force in the echo of her own "You are impertinent," from the
mouth of Mr. Jansenius, took fresh alarm. "The fault book," she said,
"is for the purpose of recording self-reproach alone, and is not a
vehicle for accusations against others."

"I am quite sure that neither Jane nor Gertrude nor I reproached
ourselves in the least for going downstairs as we did, and yet you did
not blame us for entering that. Besides, the book represented moral
force--at least you always said so, and when you gave up moral force,
I thought an entry should be made of that. Of course I was in a rage at
the time, but when I came to myself I