Lluella and The Fox, more used to
these orgies than some of the other girls, had retained
some presence of mind. Their first thought if
this should prove to be the teacher or the matron was
to try and save such of the feast as could be hidden.
Each girl flung up a spread to the pillows, and so
hid the viands on the two beds. Then Mary Cox
went quickly to the door.
The cowering girls clung to each other
and waited breathlessly. Mary opened the door.
There stood the abashed Belle Tingley, her plate in
one hand, the gilded vase in the other, and beside
her was the tiny figure of Mademoiselle Picolet, who
looked very stern indeed at The Fox.
“I might have expected you
to be a ringleader in such an escapade as this, Miss
Cox,” she said, sharply, but in a low voice.
“I very well knew, Miss Cox, when the new girls
came this fall that you were determined to
contaminate them if you could. Every girl here
will remain in her seat after prayers in the chapel
to-morrow morning. Remember!”
She whipped out a notebook and pencil
and evidently wrote Mary Cox’s name at the head
of her list. The Fox was furiously red and furiously
angry.
“I might have known you would
be spying on us, Miss Picolet,” she said, bitingly.
“Suppose some of us should play the spy on you,
Miss Picolet, and should run to Mrs. Tellingham with
what we might discover?”
“Go to your room instantly!”
exclaimed the French teacher, with indignation.
“You shall have an extra demerit for that,
Miss!”
Yet Ruth, who had been watching the
teacher’s face intently, saw that she became
actually pallid, that her lips seemed to be suddenly
blue, and the countless little wrinkles that covered
her cheeks were more prominent than ever before.
Mary Cox flounced out and disappeared.
The teacher pointed to the chums’ waste-basket
and said to Bell, the unfaithful sentinel:
“Empty your plate in that receptacle,
Miss Tingley. Spill the contents of that vase
in the bowl. Now, Miss, to your room.”
Belle obeyed. So she made each
girl, as she called her name and wrote it in her book,
throw away the remains of her feast, and pour out the
chocolate. One by one they were obliged to do
this and then walk sedately to their rooms.
Jennie Stone was caught on the way out with a most
suggestive bulge in her loose blouse, and was made
to disgorge a chocolate layer cake which she had sought
to “save” when the unexpected attack of
the enemy occurred.
“Fie, for shame, Miss Stone!”
exclaimed the French teacher. “That a
young lady of Briarwood Hall should be so piggish!
Fie!”
But it was after all the other girls
had gone and Ruth and Helen were left alone with her,
that the little French teacher seemed to really show
her disappointment over the infraction of the rules
by the pupils under her immediate charge.
“I hoped for better things of
you two young ladies,” she said, sorrowfully.
“I feared for the influence over you of certain
minds among the older scholars; but I believed you,
Ruth Fielding, and you, Helen Cameron, to be too independent
in character to be so easily led by girls of really
much weaker wills. For one may will to
do evil, or to do good, if one chooses. One
need not drift.
“Miss Fielding! take that basket
of broken food and go down to the basement and empty
it in the bin. Miss Cameron, you may go
to bed again. I will wait and see you so disposed.
Alóns!”
But before Ruth could get out of the
room, and while Helen was hastily preparing for bed,
Miss Picolet noticed something “bunchy”
under Ruth’s spread. She walked to the
bedside and snatched back the coverlet. The
still untasted viands were revealed.
“Ah-ha!” exclaimed the
French teacher. “At once! into the basket
with these, if you will be so kind, Miss Fielding.”
Had Heavy seen those heaps of goodies
thus disposed of she must have groaned in actual misery
of spirit! But Helen, being quick in her preparations
for bed, hopped into her own couch before Miss Picolet
turned around to view that corner of the room, and
with Helen under the bedclothes the hidden dainties
(though she did mash some of them) were not
revealed to the eye of the teacher, who stood grimly
by the door as Ruth marched gravely forth with the
basket of broken food.
For a minute or two Helen was as silent
as Miss Picolet; then she ventured in a very small
voice:
“Miss Picolet if you please?”
“Well, Mademoiselle?” snapped the little
lady.
“May I tell you that my chum
Ruth had nothing to do with this infringement of the
school rules? That the feast was all mine; that
she merely partook of it because we roomed together?
That she had nothing to do with the planning of the
frolic?”
“Well?”
“I thought perhaps that you
might believe otherwise,” said Helen, softly,
“as you made Ruth remove the the provisions,”
said Helen. “And really, she isn’t
at all to blame.”
“She cannot be without blame,”
declared Miss Picolet, yet less harshly than she had
spoken before. “An objection from her would
have stopped the feast before it began is
it not, Miss Cameron?”
“But she is not so much
to blame, Miss Picolet,” repeated Helen.
“Of that we shall see,”
returned the little lady, and waited by the door until
Ruth returned from the basement. “Now to
bed!” ejaculated Miss Picolet. “Wait
in chapel after prayers. I really hoped the girls
of my dormitory would not force me to call the attention
of the Preceptress to them because of demerits this
half and I did not believe the trouble
would start with two young ladies who had just arrived.”
So saying, she departed. But
Helen whispered Ruth, before she got in bed, to help
remove the remaining goodies to the box in the closet.
“At least, we have saved this
much from the wreck,” chuckled Helen.
Ruth, however, was scarcely willing
to admit that that the salvage would repay them for
the black marks both surely had earned.