ked the infuriated principal. "Do you
dare defy my commands?"

"I do not wish to defy your orders, Miss Woodhull, but I can not read
someone else's letter."

Beverly's voice was trembling partly from nervousness, partly from
outraged pride.

"You shall read that letter to me whether it is yours or not though I
have not the slightest doubt that it is yours, and that you are trying to
shield yourself behind some purely fictitious person. You seem to possess
a lively imagination."

Beverly stood rigid. Miss Woodhull waited.

"Perhaps you will be good enough to give a name to your fictitious
being?"

"I do know to whom that letter was sent, for I saw her drop it. I picked
it up to return it to her, but before I could do so it disappeared from
my history. I could not help reading the first line because it stood out
so plainly before me when I picked the letter from the floor. I know
nothing further of its contents, and I do not wish to. That line was
silly enough. The girl did not know what had become of it until I went to
her later and told her about finding it and also about its loss
afterward. From that moment to this I have never laid eyes upon it, and I
wish I never had seen it at all. You may believe me or not as you choose,
but until I came into this school such things had never entered my head,
and mother and Uncle Athol would be perfectly disgusted with the whole
showdown. And so am I." Beverly paused for want of breath.

_"Who dropped that letter?"_ The words were in italics, notwithstanding
the fact that some vague doubts were beginning to form in the back of the
principal's brain.

"Do you for one second think that I will tell you?" blazed Beverly.

"I am very positive that you will tell me without a moment's delay, or
you will be suspended from this school within twenty-four hours, if not
expelled. Her name! At once!"

"I shall never tell you no matter what you do to me. What do you take me
for? How _dare_ you think me capable of such a low-down, mucker trick?"
Unconsciously she had lapsed into Athol's vernacular. It was the last
touch to Miss Woodhull's wrath. She actually flew up out of her chair and
catching Beverly by her shoulders shook her soundly. Then it all happened
in a flash. Miss Woodhull was a tall woman and a large woman as well. She
weighed at least one-hundred-seventy pounds. But from lack of proper
exercise (she loathed walking) and the enjoyment of the many luxuries
which the past