"I have something rather important to say," she said; "it concerns us both, and"--she hesitated for a barely appreciable second--"and no one else. Except Miss Holland," frigidly, with a glance over her shoulder. "Oh, come in, come in!" cried Pauline, "and if it is about this wretched election, let us have it out. Charlotte and Peggy know the worst, I think. Come in." Shirley advanced, and Katharine shrinkingly followed her; the uneasy air of the latter, and her apprehensive looks, made Charlotte sit up with an expression of interest. "The plot thickens," she soliloquized to her teacup; and Pauline, hearing her, knit her brows impatiently. "Well?" she said rather shortly to Shirley. Her tone brought a flush to the other's cheek; she hesitated for another moment, and then said coldly, "Miss Holland will explain." Upon being brought thus abruptly into prominence, Katharine Holland silently besought them all for mercy with her shamed eyes; then, urged by a monitory look from Shirley, who leaned beside the table in frozen silence, she brought out a foolish and pitiable tale. It was simply an account of various silly slanders, some directed against Shirley, and others against Pauline, with which she confessed she had regaled a company of upper classmen, apparently only to amuse them; and she interrupted her confession with weak excuses, like a guilty child. In her humiliation she made an uncomfortable spectacle, but Shirley said sternly, "Finish." "Oh, let her be!" cried Pauline, impatient of the scene; "who cares to hear all this? We know it already." "There is one thing yet," said Shirley, "but I will tell it myself; I made her tell all the rest, so that you might know whether you ought to take her word against me. She has accused me of going about to ask for votes." The speaker's tone was stout enough, but she leaned heavily on the table, "so I brought her here to retract it." Stung by a generous indignation, Pauline sprang to her feet. "Would you have believed that of me?" she cried. "She need not trouble to retract it." Then, turning to Katharine, "That is quite enough, Miss Holland," she said, and the penitent stumbled to the door. As the door closed upon her, Charlotte, who had finished her tea in silence, put down her cup with an air of decision, and turning to Shirley, said suddenly, "Wasn't it a little hard on her, Miss Nairn?" "To punish her for telling a campaign lie?" demanded Shirley. "Please leave the campaign out of the question for a moment. She doesn't seem particularly venomous; don't you think she deserved a little mercy?" "She is a poor creature," said Shirley setting her lips, "and deserves nothing." "She is a poor creature," Charlotte assented in her easy drawl, "whom you have made poorer by the loss of her self-respect. Why?" "Because she lied about us," retorted Pauline, rushing in to defend their joint position.