Well, at first I thought the girls at school had played a Trick on me, and a low down mean Trick at that.  There are always those who think it is funny to do that sort of thing, but they are the first to squeel when anything is done to them.  Once I put a small garter Snake in a girl’s muff, and it went up her sleave, which is nothing to some of the things she had done to me.  And you would have thought the School was on fire.

Anyhow, I said to myself that some Smarty was trying to get me into trouble, and Hannah would run to the Familey, and they’d never beleive me.  All at once I saw all my cherished plans for the summer gone, and me in the Country somewhere with Mademoiselle, and walking through the pasture with a botany in one hand and a folding Cup in the other, in case we found a spring a cow had not stepped in.  Mademoiselle was once my Governess, but has retired to private life, except in cases of emergency.

I am naturaly very quick in mind.  The Archibalds are all like that, and when once we decide on a Course we stick to it through thick and thin.  But we do not lie.  It is rediculous for Hannah to say I said the cigarettes were mine.  All I said was: 

“I suppose you are going to tell the Familey.  You’d better run, or you’ll burst.”

“Oh, Miss Barbara, Miss Barbara!” she said.  “And you so young to be so wild!”

This was unjust, and I am one to resent injustice.  I had returned home with my mind fixed on serious Things, and now I was being told I was wild.

“If I tell your mother she’ll have a fit,” Hannah said, evadently drawn hither and thither by emotion.  “Now see here, Miss Bab, you’ve just come Home, and there was trouble at your last vacation that I’m like to remember to my dieing day.  You tell me how those things got there, like a good girl, and I’ll say nothing about them.”

I am naturaly sweet in disposition, but to call me a good girl and remind me of last Xmas holadays was too much.  My natural firmness came to the front.

“Certainly not,” I said.

“You needn’t stick your lip out at me, Miss Bab, that was only giving you a chance, and forgetting my Duty to help you, not to mention probably losing my place when the Familey finds out.”

“Finds out what?”

“What you’ve been up to, the stage, and writing plays, and now liquor and tobacco!”

Now I may be at fault in the Narative that follows.  But I ask the school if this was fair treatment.  I had returned to my home full of high Ideals, only to see them crushed beneath the heal of domestic tyranny.

     Necessity is the argument of tyrants;
     it is the creed of slaves. 
     William Pitt.

How true are these immortal words.

It was with a firm countenance but a sinking heart that I saw Hannah leave the room.  I had come home inspired with lofty Ambition, and it had ended thus.  Heart-broken, I wandered to the bedside, and let my eyes fall on the Suitcase, the container of all my woe.