Inside the room there was a moment’s silence, filled almost palpably by Sylvia’s quivering alarm, and by Judith’s bitter mental resistance.  Mr. Bristol drew out a big book from the shelf over his desk and held it out to Sylvia.  “I guess you all got pretty excited about this, didn’t you?” he said, smiling wisely at the child.  “You and your sister sit down and look at the pictures in this for a while, till you get cooled off, and then I’ll hear all about it.”

Sylvia took the book obediently, and drew Judith to a chair, opening the pages, brushing away her tears, and trying to go through the form of looking at the illustrations, which were of the birds native to the region.  In spite of her emotion, the large, brightly colored pictures did force their way through her eye to her brain, instinct in every fiber with the modern habit of taking in impressions from the printed page; and for years afterwards she could have told the names of the birds they saw during that long, still half-hour, broken by no sound but the tap-tap-tap of Mr. Bristol’s typewriter.  He did not once look towards them.  This was partly a matter of policy, and partly because he was trying desperately to get a paper written for the next Convention of Public School Principals, which he was to address on the “Study of Arithmetic in the Seventh Grade.”  He had very fixed and burning ideas about the teaching of arithmetic in the seventh grade, which he longed with a true believer’s fervor to see adopted by all the schools in the country.  He often said that if they would only do so, the study of arithmetic would be revolutionized in a decade.

Judith sat beside her sister, not pretending to look at the book, although the rigidity of her face insensibly softened somewhat in the contagious quiet of the room.

When they had turned over the last page and shut the book, Mr. Bristol faced them again, leaning back in his swivel-chair, and said:  “Now, children—­all quiet?  One of you begin at the beginning and tell me how it happened.”  Judith’s lips shut together in a hard line, so Sylvia began, surprised to find her nerves steadied and calmed by the silent half-hour of inaction back of her.  She told how they were met that morning by the news, how the children shouted after Camilla as she got into the carriage, how the Five A girls had decided to exclude her from the picnic, how angry Judith had been, and then—­then—­she knew no more to tell beyond the bare fact of Judith’s passionate misdeed.

Mr. Bristol began to cross-examine Judith in short, quiet sentences.  “What made you think of throwing the things into the river?”

“I was afraid they’d get them back somehow if I didn’t,” said Judith, as if stating a self-evident argument.

“Where did you go to throw them in?  To the Monroe Street bridge?”

“No, I didn’t have time to go so far.  I just went down through Randolph Street to the bank and there was a boat there tied to a tree, and I got in and pushed it out as far as the rope would go and dropped the things in from the other end.”