"So I'm aware. In the circumstances the letter should have been posted, but that has nothing to do with it. What I want to know is on what authority you have presumed to open it?" Miss Thompson's grey eyes were almost hypnotic in their power. Avelyn's fell before their keen scrutiny. "Mother always used to let me see my reports," she faltered. "That's quite a different matter, to allow you to look at what she had already seen herself. To open a letter addressed to anyone else, without permission, is one of the most dishonourable things that anybody can do. No lady would disgrace herself by such an action. I am amazed beyond measure to find that any girl in this school could be capable of it. I thought you knew our standards better. Have you been a whole term here, Avelyn, and not yet learnt the very elements of honour? Silverside has always prided itself upon its traditions." Avelyn stood aghast. It had never struck her that anyone would construe her thoughtless and impulsive action in such a light. She had no further excuse to urge. "Have you the report here? Then go and fetch it," commanded the Principal. Avelyn went without a word. When she returned and handed Miss Thompson the paper, the latter took out her stylo and appended another line: "Conduct unfortunately not strictly honourable." She showed the addition to Avelyn. "I am going to _post_ this to your mother," she remarked pointedly. "You may tell your room-mates that they are each to bring me her report. I shall post theirs also. I am very much disappointed in you all." Avelyn left the room in the depths of dejection. She had been very near tears all the morning, and now she could restrain herself no longer. It seemed an absolutely pixie day, with disgrace on the top of bad news. She gave a husky message to Laura, telling her to pass it on to the others, and then flew into the bath-room and had a good weep in private. Crying is a horrid business; it makes one's head ache, and one's eyes feel bunged up, and one's throat sore, and one's heart like a lump of lead. If it is true that our emotions cause waves of colour to emanate from us, poor Avelyn's aura must at that moment have been a particularly dingy drab. [Illustration: AN INTERVIEW WITH MISS THOMPSON] "What will Mother think of my getting 'dishonourable' in my report?" she sobbed. "And I can't go home and tell her all about it. I'll write to her and try to explain, but I'm always a silly at writing. She's kept all our reports ever since we first went to school, and we've none of us ever had anything nasty like this in them. It'll just spoil the record. Oh, dear, what an idiot I've been! I wish I hadn't to go to Cousin Lilia's this afternoon! I know I'll hate Christmas there. Life's a perfectly sickening business!" CHAPTER XIV War Work