atement of Elizabeth
Bruce's detention, her face had all its old smiling serenity again.

She rose, sighing thankfully, and collecting her slates, walked down
soberly to the busy master at his desk.

"Let this be a lesson to you, Elizabeth," he said, running his eye down
slate after slate. "Ten times each side, twenty times each slate, five
slates--one hundred. More punishments are meted out to you than to any
other child in the school. I shall find it necessary, if this state of
things continues, to write to your father. Clean the slates and return
them to their places--then go."

Elizabeth found the cloak-room empty. She assured herself that every one
had gone home--of course; but her eyes flashed round the press room, and
to that corner between the press and the door, for a blue-frocked little
girl with red hair. And, of course, as she was now Geraldine Montgomery,
the disappointment of finding the corner empty was not so keen as it
would have been merely to Elizabeth Bruce.

"I think," said this foolish little girl aloud, "I'll wear my leghorn
hat with the ostrich feathers in it to-day. Papa always likes that." And
she took her old pink bonnet down from her peg and slipped it upon her
head. Then she stuffed her books into her black school-bag and turned to
the door.

Elizabeth Bruce fancied Cyril would be away there under the saplings
playing knucklebones impatiently, and her eyes eagerly scanned the
deserted playground. No kneeling figures, no Nellie Underwood, no Cyril,
no knucklebones. For a second the tears trembled in her eyes at the
thought that no one had waited for her, but in a minute Elizabeth Bruce
slipped away, and Geraldine Montgomery in her leghorn hat was treading
the homeward way.

Behind her, she told herself, an old gipsy woman was skulking--she had
seen the ostrich feathers, the "rare lace upon the simple rich dress."

It was just behind the store that the gipsy and Geraldine both
disappeared.

The store turned one blank wall upon Carlyle Road--which was the home
road--and Elizabeth came round the corner sharply and then stood still.
There, kneeling upon the red clayey earth, his face to the wall, was big
John Brown.

Elizabeth made out that he was writing or figuring with blue chalk upon
the wall's blankness, and although her heart feared the big rough boy
she had "fought," she drew nearer.

"Hulloa!" said John Brown, flushing when he saw the small pinafored
maiden he had an unpleasa