es
to a public demonstration, you can gamble on that!"

Elinor's face was perplexed. "But I don't see what can be done," she
said gently. "I'd hate to have the thing dragged up before the school
again. Of course, if it had been denied right then and there, I'd have
been very glad, but now, after all these days----"

"It's only a week," protested Margaret Howes, firmly. "We had to wait
till the Board met, you know."

"They can make an announcement, just as the prize announcement was
made," explained Griffin, drumming impatiently on the table. "You may
be too modest to be there, but it can be put through without you, and
you will be cleared, don't you see?"

"Is Miss Green still in the Committee room?" asked Patricia suddenly.

"Of course," returned Griffin, shortly. "She had other reports to
make. She usually stays about half an hour, she'll be longer today.
Why?"

"I thought I'd like to have her here," she said, with a sidelong glance
at Judith. "We've found out something about----"

She stopped, trying to arrange her speech so as to present the intended
disclosure in the clearest form possible, but Judith, whose cheeks had
been burning at Griffin's account of the interview in the Committee
room, took the words out of her mouth.

"We've found out all about it!" she cried triumphantly. "Doris
Leighton copied Elinor's design, and put it in ahead of Elinor! I know
all about it, and I'll tell Miss Green and the whole committee, too, if
I have to!"

Griffin was the first of the three to recover. She leaned forward, a
thin, eager hand on Judith's arm.

"Say that again, young one," she demanded imperatively. "Make it good
and plain this time."

Judith repeated her startling statement, adding that she had proof for
everything she said. Her manner was so genuine and convincing that
Griffin started up with a quick gesture of command.

"Don't say another word till I get back," she said, authoritatively,
and was gone before any questions could be formed.

They sat in absolute silence, absently watching the occupants of the
now nearly deserted tables straggle out in twos and threes, until the
room was quite empty, and Patricia could bear it no longer.

"We don't have to petrify, do we?" she said, with a nervous ripple.
"Griffin may keep us sitting here for hours----"

Judith's dramatic sense asserted itself, and she frowned at Patricia's
frivolous interruption of the portentous silence.

"Do be stil