now, that I did
it--but I can't face Miss Vinton."

She looked ready to cry.

"Well, I shall have to confess too," I said. "It was partly my fault.
Let us go together."

"I daren't," said Alice.

But I could see she was yielding.

"Come along," I said, taking her arm. "It's the only way out. You know
you won't keep Mabel's prize, and it's as bad to keep her honour and
glory. This is the only way out. Let's get it over."

She came then, but reluctantly.

Fortunately we found Miss Vinton alone in her room, and between us we
managed to stammer out our confession.

Miss Vinton, I think, was not surprised. She had feared there was
something not quite straight. But she was extremely severe with us both,
as much with me as with Alice, and as it was to be my last interview
with her I was heart-broken.

However, I lingered a moment after Alice, and then turned back and said:

"Please forgive me, you can't think how sorry I am."

"Remember, Margaret," she replied, "that it is not enough to be
honourable in your own conduct--you must as far as possible discourage
anything dishonourable in other people. I know you would not cheat
yourself, but if it is wrong to cheat, it is equally wrong to help some
one else to cheat--don't you see? Will you remember this in future--in
big things as well as in small? You must not only do right yourself.
Your influence must be on the right side too. Certainly, I forgive you.
You've been a good girl all this year, and I'm sorry to lose you."

So I went away comforted.

And I came home with never a prize to show. But I had what was better. I
had acquired a real love of study which I have never lost. I don't know
what became of Alice Thompson, I only hope that she never had to earn
her living by teaching. Nelly Gascoyne went home to a jolly family of
brothers and sisters and gave herself up to the pleasures and duties of
home. Joyce became assistant mistress in a school, and Mabel followed up
her successes at school by winning a scholarship at Cambridge a year
later.

And I--well, I've never come in first anywhere, but I'm fairly contented
with a second place.

THE SILVER STAR.

BY NELLIE HOLDERNESS.

Maysie Grey had set her heart on the Drawing Society's Silver Star. She
kept her ambition to herself as a thing too audacious to be put into
words. That she possessed talent, the school fully recognised. She was
only thirteen, and by dint of steady perseverance was making a