have ever known to happen at
Wellington. I shall certainly take it up with Miss Rutledge. There is
now no room left for doubt regarding the authorship of this letter. It
is undeniably your work, Miss Seaton. It remains yet to be discovered
what part Miss Gilbert played in it."

Without further preliminary, the incensed matron read aloud Eleanor's
letter.

Marian Seaton turned from red to pale as she listened. Maizie kept her
eyes resolutely on the floor. This last bit of evidence was too
overwhelming to be disputed. It could not be explained away.

"What have you to say to this?" demanded Mrs. Weatherbee of Marian.

"Nothing," was the muttered reply.

The matron had a great deal to say. For the next ten minutes she
lectured the culprits with scathing severity.

"I shall recommend that you be expelled from college, Miss Seaton. Miss
Gilbert, were you also a party to this affair?"

"Yes," was the tranquil response, "I knew all about it. Can't say I'm
very proud of it. Still, it's rather too late now for regrets."

Maizie raised her unfathomable black eyes from their studied scrutiny of
the floor. Quite by chance they met Jane's gray ones. Jane had a
peculiar impression as of a veil that had been slowly lifted, revealing
to her a Maizie Gilbert who had the possibilities of something higher
than malicious mischief-making.

Obeying an impulse which suddenly swayed her, she turned to the matron.

"Mrs. Weatherbee," she said, "can't this affair be settled now and among
ourselves? After all, no great harm has really come of it. The missing
jewelry has been found, Judith has been exonerated, I still have my
room, and no one except those present knows what has taken place here
to-night. We are willing to forget it if you are. I am speaking for
Judith and Norma. I am sure Elsie doesn't want her cousin to be
expelled. Can't we blot it out and begin over again?"

"I should like it to be that way," said Judith quietly.

Norma nodded silent concurrence.

"I'll never forgive Marian, but I'd hate to see her expelled," Elsie
said, after a brief hesitation. "I don't think Maizie ought to be,
either. It's not half as much her fault as Marian's."

Perhaps this latest turn of the tide amazed Mrs. Weatherbee most of all.
For a time she silently scanned the group of girls before her. She had
not reckoned that the defense would suddenly swing about and plead for
the defeated prosecution.

"I cannot answer you now, Miss Allen,"