ed and into her dressing-gown.
"I expect, though, she will have to know. It is bound to reach all the
girls. I only wish it wasn't."

Anna, creeping back to her room, did not answer till she got there.
Then she turned round sharply. "What do you mean? Know what?" she
demanded.

Kitty looked surprised. "Why, about Lettice and--and you, and those
letters, of course."

Anna dropped on to a chair, her face chalk-white, her eyes starting.
"Lettice and--and--and me--and--who told--what do you mean? I don't
understand."

"Anna, don't!" cried Kitty, ashamed and distressed. "Don't try to
pretend. There is no mistake, and every one must know soon about
Lettice. Whoever it was who nearly caught you made a mistake, for she
thought it was me, and Miss Richards wrote to father accusing me, but,
of course--"

"Accusing you!" cried Anna in astonishment. But her voice had changed.
It was less full of terror than it had been. For a moment after Kitty
ceased speaking she sat lost in thought.

"Of course father does not believe it, and he has written to tell Miss
Richards so, and that I was at home all the evening, so there would have
to be an inquiry of course, to try and find out which of the other girls
it was, and everybody would have to know all about it; but now, when you
tell Miss Richards that it was you, it needn't go any farther.
Of course there will be a row, and probably you and Lettice will be
punished, but no one else need ever hear anything more about it."

"Oh, but I couldn't!" cried Anna. She was so intensely relieved to find
that, as yet, she was not suspected, that much of her courage and
boldness came back. "And, of course, I shouldn't, unless they asked me,
and--and for mother's sake it would be very foolish to--to get myself
into a scrape when I needn't."

"But--but, Anna"--Anna's speech left Kitty almost voiceless--"it is--it
is so dishonourable, so dishonest, so--"

"No, it isn't," snapped Anna crossly. She bitterly regretted now that
she had taken Kitty into her confidence. She had done it in a moment of
panic when she felt that detection was certain, and she must get help
from somewhere. As soon as she knew that she was not suspected her
courage and hopes had rallied. "You need not mind; you will be cleared;
and they can't find and punish any one else, for there is no one else to
find, so it can't do any one any harm."

"There is Lettice," said Kitty coldly. "You know you can't trust