t I feel impelled to interfere in your games," she
had said. "Not long since I refused to listen to something Miss Arnold
tried to tell me; but, when several heartless girls deliberately combine
to humiliate and discomfit a companion under the flimsy pretext of 'the
good of the team' it is time to call a halt. Four girls were prime
movers in this contemptible plan. One girl was an accessory, and
therefore equally guilty. In justice to the traditions of Sanford High
School the girl who has suffered at your hands, and in defense of my own
self-respect, these offenders must be punished. So I am going to
disband your team and forbid any one of you to play basketball again
until I am satisfied that you know something of the first principles of
honor and fair play. However, I shall not forbid basketball to the
freshmen. The innocent shall not suffer with the guilty. A new team will
be chosen which I trust will be a credit rather than a detriment to our
high school. You are dismissed."

Five girls, whose faces were an open indication of their chagrin, had
left the principal's office in a far more chastened frame of mind than
when they had entered it. Miss Archer's arraignment had been a most
unpleasant surprise, and in discussing it among themselves afterward,
Helen Thornton had caused Mignon to pour forth a torrent of biting words
by saying sulkily, that if Mignon had let Ellen Seymour alone everything
would have been all right.

"Do you mean to say that you believe those miserable girls?" Mignon had
cried out.

And Helen had answered with marked sarcasm, "No; I believe what I saw
with my own eyes, and I wish I'd never heard of your old team. I'm
ashamed to think I ever listened to you," and had walked away from the
group with a sore and penitent heart, never to return to their circle
again.

All this was, of course, kept strictly secret by the other four
ex-members, who joined hands and vowed solemnly that they would weather
the gale together. The disbanding of the team by Miss Archer and Ellen
Seymour's vindication, could not be hushed up, however, and, despite
their protests that Miss Archer was unfair, and that the statements of
certain other girls were wholly unreliable, they lost ground with their
classmates.

Marjorie, too, had been made to feel the weight of their displeasure,
for they took pains to circulate the report that it was she who had told
tales to the principal, and thus brought them to grief. Several