ted. It was pleasant, too, to hear again of Bridgie and
Esmeralda, who had been so long unmentioned, and who must really be the
funniest creatures! And now that the poor little scrap was to be
punished in such drastic fashion, one might venture to show pity without
being accused of encouraging wickedness. After all, she had so far been
convicted of no worse crime than obstinacy.

Unfortunately for Pixie, some of her companions took a different view of
Miss Phipps's decision, seeing in it a proof that the Principal at least
was convinced of her guilt, and so felt themselves bound to follow her
example by ostracising the offender. Some of Lottie's followers were
among the number, and that young lady found herself in the difficult
position of being drawn two ways at once, for she had vowed to befriend
Pixie, yet was loth to risk her popularity by acting in opposition to
the general feeling. She took refuge in an easy neutrality, remaining
silent when gibing words were passed from mouth to mouth, and avoiding
every opportunity of coming into contact with Pixie herself. With so
many girls about and the rush of examination work on hand, this was easy
enough to accomplish, for Lottie was ambitious, and made special effort
to come out in a good position on the list. Every evening she pored
over books to "stew" up the subject of the next day's exam, and every
morning seated herself before her desk, and became immediately immersed
in the paper before her. Oh, those papers, what agony and confusion of
spirit they brought to one poor scholar at least! Pixie had been
informed that the secret of examination work was to carefully read over
the list of questions, and then set to work at once on the one she could
answer best, be it number one or six; but what was a poor girl to do
when she was convinced that she could not answer one at all? No one had
even imagined such a position, and yet it was the one in which she found
herself over and over again during those last miserable days. She was
so unused to examination work that the formal wording of the questions
frequently disguised their meaning, and made her imagine ignorance when
in reality she could have answered correctly enough; and oh, what misery
to look around the room and see every other girl scribbling for her
life, and looking as if the only difficulty was lack of time to write
all she knew!

Pixie's mode of proceeding was to print an elaborate heading to her
pape