Miss Eccleston paused.  Polly put her handkerchief up to her eyes and began to sob loudly.

“Miss Oliphant,” said Miss Eccleston, “will you please account for the fact that you, who are looked up to in this college, you who are one of our senior students, and for whom Miss Heath has a high regard, took part in the disgraceful scenes which occurred in Miss Singleton’s room on Monday evening?”

“I shall certainly tell you the truth,” retorted Maggie.  She paused for a moment.  Then, the color flooding her cheeks, and her eyes looking straight before her, she began: 

“I went to Miss Singleton’s room knowing that I was doing wrong.  I hated to go and did not take the smallest interest in the proceedings which were being enacted there.”  She paused again.  Her voice, which had been slightly faltering, grew a little firmer.  Her eyes met Miss Heath’s, which were gazing at her in sorrowful and amazed surprise.  Then she continued:  “I did not go alone.  I took another and perfectly innocent girl with me.  She is a newcomer, and this is her first term.  She would naturally be led by me, and I wish therefore to exonerate her completely.  Her name is Priscilla Peel.  She did not buy anything, and she hated being there even more than I did, but I took her hand and absolutely forced her to come with me.”

“Did you buy anything at the auction, Miss Oliphant?”

“Yes, a sealskin jacket.”

“Do you mind telling me what you paid for it?”

“Ten guineas.”

“Was that, in your opinion, a fair price for the jacket?”

“The jacket was worth a great deal more.  The price I paid for it was much below its value.”

Miss Eccleston made some further notes in her book.  Then she looked up.

“Have you anything more to say, Miss Oliphant?”

“I could say more.  I could make you think even worse of me than you now think, but as any further disclosures of mine would bring another girl into trouble I would rather not speak.”

“You are certainly not forced to speak.  I am obliged to you for the candor with which you have treated me.”

Miss Eccleston then turned to Miss Heath and said a few words to her in a low voice.  Her words were not heard by the anxiously listening girls, but they seemed to displease Miss Heath, who shook her head; but Miss Eccleston held very firmly to her own opinion.  After a pause of a few minutes, Miss Heath came forward and addressed the young girls who were assembled before her.

“The leading spirit of this college,” she said, “is almost perfect immunity from the bondage of rules.  The principals of these halls have fully trusted the students who reside in them and relied on their honor, their rectitude, their sense of sound principle.  Hitherto we have had no reason to complain that the spirit of absolute trust which we have shown has been abused; but the circumstance which has just occurred has given Miss Eccleston and myself some pain.”