stammered Anne, who would rather have died than have
blamed Tommy, and Nannie, and Amelia, and the rest of her friends.

"Well, then," said Miss Mary, firmly, "I'm sorry, but you will have to
sit on the platform the rest of the morning, and I can't let you take
part in the Saturday's entertainment. I must have order and I will
have it."

And that was Miss Mary's second piece of injustice. But then she had a
headache, and children on Monday mornings are troublesome.

For one hour Anne sat with her head held high and her fair little face
flushed and burning. But she did not cry. And Tommy, bowed to the
ground by his sense of guilt in the matter, did not dare to look at the
patient, suffering martyr.

It was thus that Launcelot Bart, coming in just before twelve o'clock
to see Tommy, found her.

As soon as he got Tommy outside of the schoolroom he collared him.

"What's the matter with Anne?" he demanded.

"She talked in school," said Tommy, doggedly.

"I don't believe it."

"Well, she did, anyhow."

"Whose fault was it?"

"Hers, I suppose."

"You don't suppose anything of the kind. Anne Batcheller never broke a
rule in her life willingly, and you know it, Tommy Tolliver."

The children were coming out of the schoolroom in little groups of twos
and threes--the girls discussing Anne's martyrdom sympathetically, the
boys with hangdog self-consciousness.

Inside the room, Anne, released from her ordeal, had gone to her desk
and was sitting there with her head up. Her face was white now, the
little lunch-basket was open before her, but the cookie and the apple
were untouched.

Launcelot looked in through the window.

"Poor little soul," he murmured.

And then Tommy blubbered.

"It was really my fault, Launcelot," he confessed.

"What!"

Tommy explained.

"And you let Anne bear it--you let Anne be punished--oh, you
miserable--little--little--cur," said the indignant squire of dames, in
a white heat.

"Aw, what could I do?" whimpered Tommy.

"Go in and tell Miss Mary," said Launcelot.

"Aw--Launcelot--"

"_Go in and tell Miss Mary!_"

Tommy went.

But Miss Mary did not wish to be bothered.

"I made a rule and Anne broke it," she said, when Tommy tried to
straighten things out, "and that is all there is to it. Don't talk
about it any more, Tommy," and she dismissed him peremptorily.

When Tommy told Launcelot the result of the interview, the big boy set
his lips in a firm line, and