Sylvia caught her breath in terror at this recital.  The Piquota river ran swift and turbid and deep between high banks at that point.  “Weren’t you afraid to venture out in a boat all by yourself?” asked the man, looking at Judith’s diminutive person.

“Yes, I was,” said Judith unexpectedly.

Mr. Bristol said “Oh—­” and stood in thought for a moment.  Some one knocked on the door, and he turned to open it.  At the sight of the tall figure standing there in his pepper-and-salt suit, Sylvia’s heart gave a great bound of incredulous rapture.  The appearance of a merciful mediator on the Day of Judgment could not have given her keener or more poignant relief.  She and Judith both ran headlong to their father, catching his hands in theirs, clinging to his arms and pressing their little bodies against his.  The comfort Sylvia felt in his mere physical presence was inexpressible.  It is one of the pure golden emotions of childhood, which no adult can ever recover, save perhaps a mystic in a moment of ecstatic contemplation of the power and loving-kindness of his God.

Professor Marshall put out his hand to the Principal, introducing himself, and explained that he and his wife had been a little uneasy when the children had not returned from school.  Mr. Bristol shook the other’s hand, saying that he knew of him through mutual acquaintances and assuring him that he could not have come at a more opportune moment.  “Your little daughter has given me a hard nut to crack.  I need advice.”

Both men sat down, Sylvia and Judith still close to their father’s side, and Mr. Bristol told what had happened in a concise, colorless narration, ending with Judith’s exploit with the boat.  “Now what would you do in my place?” he said, like one proposing an insoluble riddle.

Sylvia, seeing the discussion going on in such a quiet, conversational tone, ventured in a small voice the suggestion that Judith had done well to confess, since that had saved others from suspicion.  “The girls were sure that Jimmy Weaver had done it.”

“Was that why you came back and told?” asked Professor Marshall.

“No,” said Judith bluntly, “I never thought of that.  I wanted to be sure they knew why it happened.”

The two men exchanged glances.  Professor Marshall said:  “Didn’t you understand me when I told you at noon that even if you could make the girls let Camilla go to the picnic, she wouldn’t have a good time?  You couldn’t make them like to have her?”

“Yes, I understood all right,” said Judith, looking straight at her father, “but if she couldn’t have a good time—­and no fault of hers—­I wasn’t going to let them have a good time either.  I wasn’t trying to make them want her.  I was trying to get even with them!”

Professor Marshall looked stern.  “That is just what I feared, Judith, and that hateful spirit is the bad thing about the whole business.”  He turned to the Principal:  “How many girls were going to the picnic?”