Judith.

Mrs. Marshall rose and began clearing away the luncheon dishes. As she
disappeared into the kitchen, she paused a moment behind the door, a
grim, invisible voice, remarking, "And what we shall do is, of course,
simply nothing at all!"

CHAPTER VIII

SABOTAGE

Sylvia and Judith walked to school in a profound silence. Sylvia was
shrinking with every nerve from the ordeal of facing again those four
hundred hostile faces; from the new and painful relations with her
playmates which lay before her. She was now committed irrevocably to
the cause of the Fingals, and she felt a terrified doubt of having
enough moral strength to stick to that position.

For the moment the problem was settled by their arriving at the
schoolhouse almost too late. The lines were just marching into the
building, and both girls barely slipped into their places in time.
Sylvia noticed with relief that Camilla was absent.

All the Five A girls had paper bags or pasteboard boxes, and in the
air of the Five A cloakroom was a strong smell of vinegar. Gretchen
Schmidt's pickles had begun to soak through the bag, and she borrowed
the cover of a box to set them in. These sounds and smells recalled
the picnic to Sylvia's mind, the picnic to which she had been looking
forward with such inexpressible pleasure. For an instant she was
aghast to think that she had forgotten her bananas, tied up all ready
at home on the sideboard. But the next instant she thought sadly that
she probably would not be welcome at the picnic. She went to her seat
and sat forlorn through the changing lessons of the afternoon.

The teacher ground out the half-hour lessons wearily, her eyes on the
clock, as unaware of the crisis in her class as though she were in
another planet. At four o'clock Sylvia filed out with the other
children to the cloakroom, but there was not the usual quick,
practised grab, each for his own belongings. The girls remained
behind, exclaiming and lamenting. Such a clamor arose that the teacher
came hurrying in, anxious for the reputation for good behavior of
her class. Good behavior in the Washington Street School, as in a
penitentiary, was gauged by the degree of silence and immobility
achieved by the inmates.

The girls ran to Miss Miller, crying out, "Somebody's stolen our
lunches,--we left them here--all our boxes and things--and they're all
gone--!"

Sylvia hung back in the door to the schoolroom, apart from the others,
half reli