For a moment there was intense silence while Amanda rose triumphantly
and flounced up to the platform.
Then an amazed, angry buzz rose from the audience of indignant girls.
Amanda, who was proverbially stupid, to have taken the prize from some
of the brightest girls in the school! It was impossible--incredible! And
yet it was only too true!
Miss Walters, with a few words of congratulation, handed the prize--a
fine set of books--to Amanda, and the latter swept haughtily back to her
seat, triumph in every line of her figure as she passed the other
pupils.
She had beaten Billie Bradley at last! And her revenge was sweeter than
even she had dreamed it would be.
But Billie, tears of anger and disappointment stinging her eyes, felt
sure that she had not been beaten fairly. Amanda had played a trick on
her, on the rest of the contestants for the prize, on Miss Walters
herself. But, in Teddy's vocabulary, Amanda had "gotten away with it."
The prize was in her possession.
"It's a shame," she heard in angry protest all about her.
"She never did it honestly."
"Somebody ought to tell Miss Walters. She doesn't know Amanda as well as
we do."
But Miss Walters had raised her hand for silence, and in a few seconds
the angry murmurs died down again.
"I have the pleasure of awarding the second prize," the principal
announced, "to Beatrice Bradley. Will you step up on the platform,
Billie?"
The second prize! She didn't want the second prize, Billie told herself,
when Amanda had come in first. To march up there on the platform with
that girl's gloating eyes upon her----
But Vi and Laura were pulling her out of her seat, pushing her out into
the aisle--and while Billie hesitated Miss Walters had impatiently
repeated her summons.
Someway Billie found her way to the platform, thanked Miss Walters
incoherently for the fine volume of poetry which was the second prize,
and stumbled back to happy oblivion among her schoolmates.
"It's a shame, honey," Laura whispered in her ear, generously forgetting
her own disappointment in Billie's. "But never mind, you got the second
prize anyway--which was more than the rest of us did," she added, with a
little stab of regret at her own failure.
"And you would have won the first prize if it hadn't been for that cat,"
added Vi fiercely.
Billie pressed their hands gratefully and glanced for the first time at
her prize.
"I'd like to throw it away!" she cried fiercely.
"Sh-h," whispered Vi, for Miss Walters was making an interesting
announcement.
"The winning compositions will now be read," she said. "Miss Arbuckle
has volunteered to give us that pleasure."
There was a great clapping of hands as Miss Arbuckle stepped on the
platform and smiled down at them. For the little teacher was a great
favorite with the girls.
"We will read Amanda's composition first," she said, "as it has had the
distinction of winning the first prize."
Again there was tense silence in the Hall. The girls were agog with
curiosity to hear this wonderful composition which had been written by
one of the notoriously stupid girls of the school.
As for Amanda, she had not foreseen this event. She had not expected to
hear her stolen composition read aloud, and before all this assembly of
stern young critics. The prospect made her a trifle nervous, but her
smile was as proudly triumphant as ever.
Her chief concern was with Eliza. For the girl was so white and scared
that she threatened to give the deception away.
Amanda gave her a sharp nudge with her elbow.
"Cheer up, will you?" she muttered fiercely. "You're not at a funeral."
Miss Arbuckle began to read, and as she read the well-rounded phrases,
the telling metaphors, the girls became more than ever stupefied with
astonishment.
"Could it be," they asked themselves incredulously, "that Amanda had
remarkable literary ability that they had never suspected? Could she
really have written a thing like that?"
The same thought seemed to be in Miss Arbuckle's mind, for as she read
on her brow became clouded and she paused now and then as though she
were trying to recollect something.
Finally she stopped altogether, looked across at Amanda for a thoughtful
moment, then laid the manuscript down and turned to Miss Walters. She
said something that the girls could not catch, then hurried from the
room.
This was something no one had counted upon. Amanda, her triumphant smile
gone at last, quaked as she heard again the excited buzz of the girls
about her.
Miss Walters' voice rose over the murmur, clear and very grave.
"Miss Arbuckle thinks she has made a discovery," she said. "She will be
back in a moment, and until then I must ask that there be absolute
silence in the room."
Miss Sara Walters possessed that rare gift of authority that needed no
raising of the voice or undue emphasis to command obedience.
Instantly the murmuring stopped and the girls waited in breathless
silence for Miss Arbuckle's return.
They did not have to wait long. A moment later the teacher reentered the
room, holding a book in her hand, the sight of which made Amanda's
craven heart sink in consternation.
The book looked like an exact copy of the one from which she had copied
her "original" prize composition!
"Miss Walters," said Miss Arbuckle in a voice which indignation made
vibrant, "I am sorry to have to admit that one of the students of Three
Towers Hall has been guilty of so disgraceful an act. But the
composition that I have just read, the essay that was handed in as
original by Amanda Peabody, has been copied word for word from this
book.
"It is an old book that has been in my possession for years--was my
father's before it was mine--and doubtless the girl thought herself
perfectly safe in copying from it. Here is the passage." She had been
marking a place with her finger, and now she opened the book at the
place and handed it to Miss Walters to read.
What a hideous minute for Amanda! If she had been awaiting a death
sentence she could hardly have felt more terrified.
To be publicly disgraced, to have all the girls laughing at her,
gloating over her----
With intense gravity Miss Walters closed the book and laid it on the
table. Amanda knew that her moment had come.
"Amanda," said Miss Walters sternly, "will you please stand up in your
place?"
Amanda stood up, conscious of a score of curious and contemptuous
glances focused upon her. Her heart was beating suffocatingly, her hands
were clenched tight at her side.
"You have been guilty to-day," Miss Walters' clear voice pronounced
sentence, "of blackening the good name of Three Towers Hall by a most
disgraceful act. But by your wretched duplicity you have injured
yourself far more than you have injured any one else. You will go to my
office. I will see you there."
There was intense silence while Amanda, her head hanging, walked from
the room. Then the eager murmur rose once more, but again Miss Walters
lifted her hand for silence.
"I am sorry," she said. "More sorry than I can express that such a thing
could have happened here. Of course the first prize will now go to
Beatrice Bradley and I will decide later to whom the second prize
belongs. That is all." With a little gesture she dismissed them and she
herself walked quickly from the room.
Then the riot that had been suppressed so long broke loose and the girls
formed into little groups talking excitedly and all at once about the
dramatic turn events had taken.
Billie, the center of a little group of her own, was fairly overwhelmed
with congratulations.
"We knew all along that you should have been the winner!"
"To think that Amanda should try to get away with a thing like that!"
said Laura, disgustedly.
"She might have, just the same," Connie reminded her. "It was just luck
that Miss Arbuckle happened to have that book."
"My, but I bet you're happy, Billie Bradley!" sighed Vi. "I shouldn't
let anybody speak to me if I were in your place."
"What's the matter, honey?" asked Laura, regarding Billie's sober face
curiously. "I say, cheer up, old dear. What have _you_ got to gloom
about?"
"I was just thinking about Amanda," said Billie, with all her sweet
sympathy for the unfortunate. "I was wondering how it would feel to be
in her shoes now."
"Out, out upon such doleful thoughts," Laura sang out airily. But
Billie, who had turned toward the window, suddenly clutched her by the
arm.
"Look!" she said, excitedly. "There's Nick Budd!"