Several officious hands at once clutched the duster and erased the offending portrait. Miss Pitman walked to her desk, closed the lid, locked it, and put the key in her pocket. "It is superfluous to tell you what I think of you," she said. "Miss Tempest will have to hear about this." "Well, Hope's done for with Miss Pitman, at any rate," said Bertha Warren to Addie Parker, when the outraged mistress had taken her departure, and the four sinners had fled downstairs. "Yes, there'll be no more favouring now--and a good thing, too! It was time Miss Pitman's eyes were opened. Will she really tell Miss Tempest?" "Serve them right if she does. I'm waiting for developments." There was not long to wait. At two o'clock, Hope, Blanche, Irene, and Valentine received a summons to the study, and after a ten minutes' interview with the head mistress came away with red eyes. "Have you heard the news?" said Noëlle Kennedy presently. "There's been a most tremendous storm--a regular blizzard--in the study. Miss Tempest has been ultra-tempestuous, and Hope and the others have come out just wrecks." "What's the matter?" enquired some of the girls who had not heard of the occurrence in the classroom. "Hope found Miss Pitman's desk unlocked, and she and Irene and Val and Blanche were calmly turning over the contents when Pittie popped into the room and caught them. Then the squalls began. They had to report themselves in the study, and it turned out that there was something else against Hope and Blanche. I don't know who gave them away, but somebody had been telling Miss Tempest that they were at the wedding that day. She charged them with it, and was simply furious because they hadn't owned up when she asked the class." "I can tell you who told her," volunteered Margaret Parker. "It was Professor Schenk. He saw them there, and he happened to mention it this morning." "Well, Miss Tempest was fearfully stern. She said Hope wasn't fit to be Warden, and to represent the Lower School, if she'd no more idea of honour than that. She's taken away the Wardenship from her. She says it's not to be decided by election again--she's going to choose a girl for herself." "Whom has she chosen?" "Grace Russell," said Ruth Harmon, who at that moment joined the group. "It's just been put up on the notice board." "Well, I'm glad. Grace will make a good Warden." "Yes, there's something solid about Grace. She never lets herself be carried away." "Hope will be crestfallen." "Never mind--it will do Hope Lawson good to find she's not the most important person in the Form." "I say," interposed Noëlle, "isn't this a good opportunity to put in a word for Dorothy? She owned up when Hope didn't, so Miss Tempest ought to remember that. Let us strike while the iron is hot, and go to the study now." "Right you are! Where are Mavie and Doris? I'm sure they'll come too."