And then Anne spoke right out—­“Oh, Tommy, don’t,” she said, in an agony of fear lest Miss Mary should come in and catch him at it.

But Miss Mary did not come, and the little girls giggled and the boys capered, and Anne in despair went on writing her words.

When Miss Mary came back finally, with the little people trooping in a rosy row behind her, twenty-five virtuous heads were bent over twenty-five papers.

“Did any one speak while I was out?” asked the teacher.

A wave of horror swept over Anne.  She had not meant to do it, but she had spoken, and to try to explain would be to condemn Tommy and the rest of the school.

“Did any one speak?” asked Miss Mary again.

Anne stood up, her face flaming.

“I—­I—­did—­” she faltered.

“Oh, Anne—­” said Miss Mary, while the girls and boys dropped their eyes for very shame.  “Oh, Anne, why did you do it—­”

“I just did it—­” stammered Anne, who would rather have died than have blamed Tommy, and Nannie, and Amelia, and the rest of her friends.

“Well, then,” said Miss Mary, firmly, “I’m sorry, but you will have to sit on the platform the rest of the morning, and I can’t let you take part in the Saturday’s entertainment.  I must have order and I will have it.”

And that was Miss Mary’s second piece of injustice.  But then she had a headache, and children on Monday mornings are troublesome.

For one hour Anne sat with her head held high and her fair little face flushed and burning.  But she did not cry.  And Tommy, bowed to the ground by his sense of guilt in the matter, did not dare to look at the patient, suffering martyr.

It was thus that Launcelot Bart, coming in just before twelve o’clock to see Tommy, found her.

As soon as he got Tommy outside of the schoolroom he collared him.

“What’s the matter with Anne?” he demanded.

“She talked in school,” said Tommy, doggedly.

“I don’t believe it.”

“Well, she did, anyhow.”

“Whose fault was it?”

“Hers, I suppose.”

“You don’t suppose anything of the kind.  Anne Batcheller never broke a rule in her life willingly, and you know it, Tommy Tolliver.”

The children were coming out of the schoolroom in little groups of twos and threes—­the girls discussing Anne’s martyrdom sympathetically, the boys with hangdog self-consciousness.

Inside the room, Anne, released from her ordeal, had gone to her desk and was sitting there with her head up.  Her face was white now, the little lunch-basket was open before her, but the cookie and the apple were untouched.

Launcelot looked in through the window.

“Poor little soul,” he murmured.

And then Tommy blubbered.

“It was really my fault, Launcelot,” he confessed.

“What!”

Tommy explained.