and little players!" cried Hippy, expressing his joy by kicking both
feet against the wooden walls as hard as he could, while he clapped his
hands and roared with all his might.

"The gamest little team I ever saw," answered Reddy.

But David, who had resumed his seat beside them, made no reply. He rose
presently and went to find his sister, who was sitting somewhat apart from
the other girls in gloomy silence.

"What's the matter with you, sister?" he asked gently. "You are not
playing as well as usual. I expected you, especially, to do some fine work
to-day. On the contrary, you have never played worse."

Miriam looked at her brother coldly.

"Why should I help them when they have dishonored me?" she demanded
fiercely.

"How have they dishonored you, Miriam?" asked David.

"By making me the last in everything; putting me at the foot," she said,
stifling a sob of anger.

David looked at his sister sorrowfully. He saw there was no reasoning with
her in her present state of mind; yet knowing her revengeful spirit, he
dreaded the consequences.

"Miriam," he said at last, speaking slowly, "perhaps, some day, you will
learn by experience that the people who give a square deal are the only
ones who really stay at the head. They always win out; and those who are
not on the level----" He stopped. A sudden suspicion had come into his
mind.

"You don't mean to say that it was you who----"

But he didn't finish. Instead, he turned on his heel and walked away. In
one glance he had read Miriam's secret. Now he understood that look of
wild appeal, baffled rage, mortification and disappointment, all jumbled
together in her turbulent soul.

"Did she really want it so badly as all that?" he thought, "or was it only
her insatiable desire never to be beaten?"

In the meantime, Grace, surrounded by a circle of her school-fellows, was
telling them the history of her imprisonment. Miss Thompson and Mrs.
Harlowe had made their way across the floor to the crowd of sophomores;
Mrs. Harlowe to find out whether her daughter's cheek had been seriously
cut, which it had not, and the principal to ask a few questions.

"Did it look like a trick, Grace?" she asked when she had heard the story.

"I hardly know, Miss Thompson. I feel certain that I left the door open
when I went in. The janitress may have locked it without seeing me."

"Perhaps," answered Miss Thompson thoughtfully, "but the rule of locking
the larger classrooms afte