Mrs. Gray sat silent.  She was too deeply incensed to trust herself to speak.  Frances looked complacent.  She evidently hoped to be commended for her plain speaking.  Then Mrs. Gray found her voice.

“Young woman,” she said, “you ought to be ashamed of yourself.  What can you hope to gain by saying unkind things about a nice, gentle, little girl who is in every respect worthy of all the love and regard that can be given her?  I do not know what you can be thinking of to speak so slightingly of one of your classmates, and I am sorry to be obliged to remind you that it is the height of ill breeding to abuse a person to his or her friends.”

With these words, Mrs. Gray turned her back squarely upon the dazed girl, who slowly arose, and without looking at Mrs. Gray, walked dejectedly across the room.  But Miriam Nesbit lost one supporter from that minute on.

“Hateful things,” said the mortified Frances, looking towards Julia and Miriam.  “I believe they are more to blame than Miss Pierson ever thought of being.”

When Grace paused at Mrs. Gray’s side after the two-step, she saw plainly that the old lady was much agitated.

“Grace,” she said quickly, “what is all this nonsense about Anne?”

“O Mrs. Gray,” cried Grace.  “Who could have been so unkind as to tell you?  We didn’t want you to know.  It is all so foolish.”

“But I want to know,” said the old lady positively.  “Anne is so very dear to me, and I can’t allow these hare-brained girls to make damaging statements about her.  Tell me at once, Grace.”

Grace reluctantly gave a brief account of her recent disagreement with her class and the unpleasantness to which Anne had been subjected.

“What does ail Miriam Nesbit?  She used to be such a nice child!” exclaimed Mrs. Gray.  “Really, Grace, I feel that I ought to go straight to Miss Thompson with this.”

Grace’s heart sank.  That was just what she did not want Mrs. Gray to do.

“Dear Mrs. Gray,” she said, patting the old lady’s hand, “it is better for us to fight it out by ourselves.  If Miss Thompson knew all that had happened, she would forbid basketball for the rest of the season.  She is awfully opposed to anything of that kind, and would champion Anne’s cause to the end, but Anne would rather let matters stand the way they are, than lose us our basketball privilege.  You see, the juniors have won the first game, and if basketball were stopped now we would have no chance to make up our lost ground.  I firmly believe that all will come right in the end, and I think the girls will get tired of their grudge and gradually drop it.  Of course it hurts to be snubbed, but I guess we can stand it.  We have some friends who are loyal, at any rate.”

“I suppose you are right, my dear,” responded the old lady.  “It is better for old folks to keep their fingers out of young folk’s pies.  But what did that pert miss mean about Anne’s father being an actor?  I had an idea he was dead.”