ading at the moment stopped
suddenly, and the class looked up in amazement, while Gerry gave a
frightened little jump.

"You, girl! What is your name?" said Miss Burton, pointing her pencil
at Gerry.

"Gerry--I mean Geraldine Wilmott," stammered Gerry.

"What do you mean by whispering to another girl during class?" demanded
the mistress, blinking furiously at the culprit through her glasses.

"I--I wasn't whispering," said Gerry. "I--I was only showing Margaret
the place."

"Don't prevaricate!" thundered Miss Burton. "You were whispering. I
saw you."

Up shot Margaret's hand.

"Please, Miss Burton," said that young lady indignantly, moved for once
to take the unpopular new girl's part, "she wasn't whispering. I'd
lost my place, and I made signs to her to show me, and she was only
pointing it out with her pencil."

"I don't believe either of you," said the new mistress. Then with a
fiery glance at Gerry, she said ferociously:

"Go on with the reading from the place where the last girl left off."

This command was shot out with such venom as to render poor Gerry a
thousand times more nervous even than usual. She had lost her own
place hopelessly by this time, and as she fumbled with the pages in the
vain endeavour to find it and comply with the order, Miss Burton spoke
again in a triumphant voice:

"I thought so. You do not know the place yourself, therefore you could
not have been showing it to your companion! You are both of you
extremely naughty, untruthful girls, and you will each take a conduct
mark for your deceitfulness."

"Please, Miss Burton, I wasn't deceiving you!" cried Gerry, goaded into
one of her rare attempts at self-assertion. "I _was_ showing Margaret
Taylor her place, and I _did_ know it quite well until you confused me
and made me lose it."

Miss Burton grew scarlet with anger.

"How dare you argue with me!" she said. "I see that you mean to give
me as much trouble as you possibly can, but I mean to take a firm hand
with you. Go and stand in that corner with your face to the wall until
the lesson is over!"

A gasp of incredulous amazement went up from the Lower Fifth.

"_Miss Burton_! We're not babies!" cried Hilda Burns indignantly.
"We're Fifth Form and not used to punishments like that. You can't
make Gerry stand in a corner!"

"Don't interfere!" said the mistress. "Geraldine Wilmott, do as I
direct you, at once."

Gerry's momentary display of spirit had quite