Katherine flushed. She had been dreading this question.

"I did not see anyone," she returned with a faint smile, after a moment of hesitation.

"I see, my dear; you do not wish to 'tell tales,' and I appreciate your position," said her companion, with a wise nod that had nothing of disapproval in it. "Well"--after considering a moment-- "we will say no more about it until Prof. Seabrook has been consulted. Jennie, however, will have reason to be grateful to you for helping her out of what, otherwise, might have proved a very awkward situation."

Miss Williams went at once to the girl and released her from the confinement she had imposed upon her the previous night. She explained how Miss Minturn had come to her rescue, and Jennie, who had for once been thoroughly frightened, vowed she would "never be caught in a scrape of any kind" during the remainder of her course.

Considerable excitement prevailed during the day, and the "midnight escapade" was the one topic of conversation whenever a group of girls came together; but it was not until study hours were over in the afternoon that any active measures to "investigate" the matter were instituted. Then Katherine was summoned to the principal's study, where she found the four teachers who had the west wing in charge, and Jennie, assembled.

Jennie was rigorously catechised, but had very little to tell. She had overheard something of a plot that promised considerable excitement and fun; she had also heard some one whisper, "Monday, at midnight," and her curiosity had been raised to the highest pitch, therefore she had been unable to resist being "in at the finish." She could not tell who were the leaders, for she had neither seen nor heard anyone, having slipped into the closet before the crash came. Being hard pressed, however, she admitted that she thought the sophomores were chiefly concerned in the "racket."

Katherine was then requested to relate all that she knew about it, whereupon she repeated what she had already told Miss Williams.

"You have corroborated what Miss Wild has stated, and have also exonerated her from any complicity in the affair," Prof. Seabrook observed, when she concluded. "I judge that it must have been confined entirely to the sophomore class. Now we must get down to individuals, if possible. Miss Minturn, did you recognize the voices of those two girls whom you overheard in the hall last night?"

"Truth compels me to say that I did," Katherine replied, a hot flush mounting to her brow.

"Their names, if you please," commanded the principal, briefly.

"I beg that you will excuse me from naming them," she pleaded.

"It is plainly your duty to expose them, Miss Minturn. The affair is of too serious a nature to allow sentiment to thwart discipline and the preservation of law and order," returned the gentleman, in an inflexible tone.

"Pardon me," she said, "but I cannot feel it my duty--at least until--"

"That is equivalent to saying that you will not comply with my request," interposed the professor, his eyes beginning to blaze in view of what he regarded as a defiant attitude.

"No, sir; I could not be so disrespectful," Katherine gently replied. "Please allow me to say that I would have taken no action whatever in the matter but for the sake of saving Miss Wild from being unjustly accused."

Jennie flashed her an adoring look as she said this.

"I just wanted to hug you!" she told her afterwards.

"Miss Wild is no doubt properly grateful; all the same you have no right to shield the guilty ones, and I shall hold you to your duty," inflexibly responded Prof. Seabrook.

Katherine saw that he was determined to make her name the culprits, and, for a moment, she was deeply distressed. Then her face suddenly cleared.

"May I suggest that it is the duty of the offenders to confess their own wrongdoing?" she questioned, in a respectful tone; adding: "It certainly is their right to have the opportunity given them, and I would prefer not to rob them of it; while it would release me from a very awkward position if they would do so."

"I think Miss Minturn is right, Prof. Seabrook," Miss Williams here remarked. "I am sure we can all understand how she feels about it, and we know that it would place her under the ban of the whole school if she were to expose the ringleaders without giving them the opportunity, as she says, to volunteer a confession."

Katherine shot a look of gratitude at the speaker, who nodded her sympathy in return.

An uncomfortable silence followed, during which the much-tried girl felt that her principal regarded her as obstinate as well as sentimental, and was more than half inclined not to yield his point, in spite of Miss Williams' espousal of her cause.

"Very well; let it rest here for the present," he at length curtly observed. "You are temporarily excused, Miss Minturn. But if the offenders do not promptly come forward, I shall expect you to tell all you know, later."

Katherine bowed and slipped quietly from the room, but with a choking sensation in her throat, a feeling of injustice pressing heavily upon her heart.

She paused in the hall a moment, after closing the door, trying to calm her perturbed thoughts, when these words from her dear "little book" came to her:

"Let Truth uncover and destroy error in God's own way, and let human justice wait on the divine." [Footnote: "Science and Health," page 542.]

Then she went on her way, at peace with herself and all the world.

CHAPTER XV.

"HILTON VOLUNTEERS."

After Katherine was dismissed, Jennie was sternly reprimanded for her infraction of rules, cautioned against future disobedience, a penalty imposed upon her, and then told she might go back to her duties.

She moved slowly to the door, stood there a moment irresolute, a thoughtful look on her young face; then deliberately turned and walked straight back to her principal.

"Prof. Seabrook," she began, "I have another confession to make to you, and I'm willing to take any punishment you may think I deserve. I do this because I want you to know the kind of girl Miss Minturn is, for--I think you do not half appreciate her. I've loved her from the first minute I saw her in this room with you, the day she came; she makes everybody love her, and I've often wondered if it is her Christian Science that helps her to be so-- so dear and true. I've tried to make her tell me something about it, but she wouldn't--she always says you told her not to talk about it to the students. I asked her last week to let me go with her to her service on Sunday. But she said no, unless I would get permission from you. But--I did go," Jennie continued, growing scarlet to her brows, yet looking the man unflinchingly in the eyes. "I started out early and was there when she came into the hall, and walked home with her afterwards. She didn't spare me; she told me I had done wrong and read me a lecture about spoiling my record by breaking rules. I want you to know this, because some one may have seen us come out of the Christian Science hall together and might think she took me there; but she never breaks a rule, and she isn't a bit priggish about it, either. She tried her best to make me go back to my room before the 'racket' last night, and I just want you to know that she's true blue, through and through."

Jennie looked very spirited and pretty with her flushed cheeks and glowing eyes as she faced her principal, and, without flinching a hair, told her simple, straightforward story in the presence of the other teachers.

Prof. Seabrook was fond of the girl, for she possessed many lovable qualities and was very faithful in the performance of her duties. If he had been inclined to be severe, because of her other offense, his heart was very tender towards her now; for he fully appreciated her honesty and the moral courage she had manifested in taking this stand for Katherine.

He was uncomfortably conscious, too, that his own attitude towards Miss Minturn had not been quite considerate. He recognized her loveliness of character, her excellence in scholarship, her conscientious deportment; in fact, he had no fault whatever to find with her, except that she was a Christian Scientist, and the remembrance of this always stirred him, in the most unaccountable manner, whenever he came in contact with her.

He regarded Jennie thoughtfully for a moment after she concluded, then a gleam of amusement crept into his eyes and his lips twitched with repressed mirth, as he dryly observed:

"Well, Jennie, it seems that you are making quite a record for yourself by breaking rules. I hope there will be no occasion for further self-condemnation after this. You may go now."

The girl was glad to go, and was "scared stiff," as she affirmed afterward, when she came to think over what she had said. But her desire to have justice done Katherine had made her forget herself, for the time, in defending her.

Still, as was characteristic, her spirits quickly rebounded, and