at one another across the neglected tea table; stared in
silence while one might have counted ten; then Dreda drew a quick,
fearful breath.

"No--no, not that! Not the essay--the numbers--the changed numbers!
You _could_ not have done that! ... Norah, I _couldn't_ believe it!"

"But I did, I did! It was all my doing. I didn't mean to, but Miss
Drake sent me to her room, and on the desk was the parcel of papers all
ready except for the string, and the girls all said yours was the best,
and I didn't want you to win. I thought it would make you more
conceited and bossy than ever. I wanted Susan to get the prize, so that
everyone should see she was cleverer than you; but I was afraid she
wouldn't, for all the girls said yours was the best. The numbers were
just fastened on with clips. It jumped into my head that it would only
take a moment to put your number on Susan's paper, and Susan's on yours.
Miss Drake said we were all to keep our own written copies, for Mr
Rawdon, like most authors, was very unmethodical and careless, and would
probably mislay the papers and never send them back. She wanted to make
it as easy for him as possible, because it was doing her a big favour to
read them at all; so she was going to tell him just to send the winning
number and not to bother about the papers. I changed the numbers, and
ran downstairs, and the parcel went off by the next post. I was glad I
had done it. You were so certain you were going to win, and so
condescending to Susan. I was glad I had done it!"

"I see--I understand. And--and when my name was read out, when I _did_
get the prize--how did you feel then, Norah? Were you still glad?"

"Yes," said Norah slowly; "I was still glad. I knew it was Susan's
essay, and I knew that _you_ knew. I saw you look at the paper and turn
white. I thought you were not going to tell. Then I should have got
hold of the essay, and told Miss Drake, and you would have been
disgraced before all the school."

Norah spoke with dogged resolution; but, for all her show of bravado,
her face flushed to a deep brick red, and her eyes sank uneasily to the
floor. Dreda, on the contrary, was very white. Any sort of emotion
always drove the blood from her face, and the pupils of her eyes had
expanded until the whole iris appeared black.

"You were quite right! At first, for the first few moments I thought I
_could_ not tell. It seemed too dreadful, after all the applause and
cla