"I never said anything at all," replied Diana, which, of course, was literally true. It was nice to eat a dainty breakfast at leisure and not hurry down to lessons. She felt herself the heroine of the school that morning as she strolled into the French class just when the disagreeable grammar part of the lesson was over. Later on in the day there were confidences in the ivy room. "I knew you hadn't done it, darling!" declared Loveday. "It wasn't like you one little bit. I had a regular squabble with Miss Beverley. I tried to come and talk to you through the door, and she came and dragged me away. Why didn't you tell Miss Todd you'd never even seen the wretched essay?" "Sissie," whispered Diana, "will _you_ tell _me_ what you were doing at Hilary's desk in the middle of the night?" "Why--why, surely you never thought----" "Yes, I did; and that's why I held my tongue," said Diana, burying her hot face on Loveday's shoulder. "Forgive me, please, for having thought it." "It never struck me that anybody should think that," said Loveday, still amazed at the idea. "And how did you know about it? Did you follow me? Well, I'll tell you what I was doing. We seniors have a secret--not a very desperate one; it's only a little literary society. We make up stories for it, and fasten them together into a sort of magazine. Geraldine is president, and Hilary is the secretary. It was the night for giving in the stories, and I put mine with the others inside Hilary's desk. Geraldine and I haven't been quite hitting it lately; so I'd made a girl in my story exactly like her, only nastier, and written a lot of very sarcastic things. I thought they were awfully clever. Then when I got into bed I was sorry. It seemed a mean sort of thing to do. I made up my mind I'd go down first thing in the morning and tear up the story. But I'm such a sleepy-head in the mornings, and you know how early Geraldine generally gets up. I was afraid she'd come down first, and probably rummage the stories out of Hilary's desk and read mine. The more I thought about it the more ashamed I was of what I'd written. I couldn't go to sleep. I felt I shouldn't be easy till it was burnt; so at last I got up, and lighted the candle, and went downstairs and did the deed. That's how you saw me at Hilary's desk. By the by, Geraldine said she caught _you_ there before supper. What were _you_ doing?" "Putting pepper among her books to pay her out and make her sneeze," confessed Diana. "Why, she did say her desk smelled somehow of pepper!" exclaimed Loveday. "We were all so excited, though, about the essay being missing that we didn't take much notice of it. The whole affair's been a sort of 'Comedy of Errors'."