d little
Samaritans--"

"Humph! If that is some new game you have invented, please never to
play it again. Your duty--"

"Why, Lady Principal, you wouldn't have us 'pass by on the other
side,' would you? To-morrow's lesson--"

But there was no softening in Miss Muriel's eye, and indignant Robin
flashed out:

"Well--well--you needn't blame _her_. You needn't blame a _girl_--when
it was all my fault! I coaxed her or she wouldn't ha' done it!"

This was such a manly, loyal reversion of the old story of Adam and
Eve that Lady Jane laughed and would have clapped her hands in pride
of her small compatriot. But she refrained and chose the wiser course
of slipping away unseen.

"Robin! you forget yourself! I have given you a home here but I have
not given you license to be insolent or disobedient. You have been
both. Your mother is somewhere on the road to town, looking for you."

But it happened she was not. Dr. Winston had espied a lone woman
dragging herself citywards and had stopped to give her a lift. Then,
learning who she was and her errand, had promptly turned about and
conveyed her also home; so she was back in their own rooms almost as
soon as her boy was and able to soothe his wrath as only mothers can.

But upon poor Dorothy fell the full force of her teacher's
indignation.

"Dorothy, I would not have believed it possible for you so willfully
to disappoint me. Go to your dormitory and to bed at once. You cannot
go off bounds again till Easter holidays. Good night."

Dorothy obeyed in silence. She could think of many things to say but
she could not say them. Even to anxious Dawkins who would have
welcomed her warmly and ministered loving comfort she could only say:

"Good night. It's such a mixed up world. It was good to help Jack, the
doctor said; and it was wrong, Miss Tross-Kingdon said; and--and--I'm
so tired! Oh! if I could only see Aunt Betty!"

With that last homesick cry, she laid her head on her pillow, and
being a perfectly healthy girl--fell fast asleep.

CHAPTER XVII

COMMENCEMENT; AND CONCLUSION

Dorothy in disgrace! That seemed an incredible thing to her
schoolmates, who had hitherto believed "Dixie" to be the one great
favorite of all.

However, she could never speak of the matter to anybody, except the
Bishop when he came home from his southern journey and the news he had
to bring her was so far more important and saddening that a short
confinement "on bounds" seemed actu