“I have no suspicion that I should care to voice,” she answered.

“That will be all.  You may resume your place with your companions.  Will Miss Thompson please step forward?”

Tommy tripped over to the fire.  There was a frightened look on her face.

“Tell us what happened to you, my dear,” urged Mrs. Livingston encouragingly.

Tommy stammered and lisped and twisted and turned, then she burst forth into speech.

“They—­they took me from my cot, Mithith Livingthton.  But I fought them.  They carried me out in the woodth.  Then—­then they—­they told me I wath a thquirrel and——­”

“A what?”

“A squirrel,” interpreted Harriet.

“And then they made me climb a tree.”

“You did not have to climb, did you!” smiled the Chief Guardian.

“I gueth not.  I wanted to.  You thee, I thought after I had climbed the tree I could make a big noithe and frighten them away,” chuckled Tommy, squinting shrewdly at her questioner.

“Oh, a bit of diplomacy on your part?” nodded Mrs. Livingston.

“Yeth, I gueth that wath it.”  Tommy had no idea what diplomacy was, but concluded that it must be something to her credit, so she decided that she had exercised it.

“You screamed; then what?”

“They ran away ath fatht ath they could.  I withh you could have theen them run, Mithith Livingthton.  It wath awfully funny.”

“I wish I might have,” answered the examiner dryly.  “What then?”

“I tried to get down and I got fatht.  I got hung up by the cord to my bathrobe.  I couldn’t get down and I couldn’t get up.  I wath jutht like a bird only I didn’t thing.  But if I couldn’t thing, I could yell.  Then Harriet came, then the otherth came, then they got me down and I wath happy ever afterwardth.  That ith all.”

A faint giggle greeted the conclusion of the evidence of little Tommy, but it was quickly suppressed by a stern glance from the Chief Guardian.

“Did you recognize any of your captors so that you could identify or name them?”

“Oh, my no.  I gueth I didn’t know my own name.  You thee I wath exthited, Mithith Livingthton.”

“It was not surprising under the circumstances,” admitted the Chief Guardian with a smile that she could not suppress, and that was reflected on the faces of nearly all the girls seated before her.  But all during the evidence the Guardian had been intently regarding not only the witness, but the other girls as well.  She was seeking for that tell-tale look that would identify the guilty girl or girls.

Tommy was told that she might take her place again.  Mrs. Livingston consulted with some of the guardians, then called Patricia Scott to the fire.  There was a movement among the other girls at this, a craning of necks and some smothered exclamations.  Mrs. Livingston was very businesslike and courteous.  Patricia’s dark face wore a slight pallor as she walked forward and faced the Guardian.