She met his eyes full. Slander of her father made her fearless. "He did not help me to do that sum, Mr. Tayloe." "Beatrice Grigsby! what have you to say of this matter?" Bea stammered and blushed in giving the testimony upon which the inquisitor insisted. At last he drew out the admission that her father had sat with Flea in the dining-room all the evening, and let nobody else come in. There was no color in the face Flea turned upon her sister, but plenty of fight in flaming eyes and working lips. "Bea Grigsby! you know that father _wouldn't_ have helped me! He only told me once that the sum was not right." "Silence!" thundered the teacher, bringing down the ruler upon the desk. "What more help did you want than that? David Grigsby, come here, sir!" Dee stumped up the aisle, settling stolidly into his hips at each step. "What story do you tell? Your sisters give one another the lie in fine style." "Flea never told a lie in her life," asserted Dee, sturdily. "Pa said so las' night." "He has a better opinion of her than I have. How did he happen to say that?" "Cause ma she didn't b'lieve Flea los' her report." "Your 'ma'"--mimicking the witness's drawl--"has more sense than your 'pa.' Did you see him help your truth-telling Flea with her sum?" "No, sir." "You wouldn't tell me if you had, would you?" "No, sir." By the time the dogged reply left his lips he reeled under a crack of the ruler upon his head. Flea cried out once and sharply, and hid her face with her hands. Mr. Tayloe addressed the school: "This girl has disobeyed me. She has tried to cheat me. She has lied outright. She also, as I believe, tore up her report to keep from showing it at home. She will stand for an hour on the dunce-stool with the dunce-cap on her head. She will not leave the school-room at play-time. She will stay after school for an hour for three days, and do, each day, a sum in long division as long as that her father did last night. The other girls to whom I gave the sum have had the honesty to confess that they could not do it. They will not be punished. They have neither cheated nor lied." If the child had been as guilty as he said, the punishment would have been extreme. Some of the girls cried silently behind their books; the boys exchanged savage looks in the shelter of slates and atlases. Nobody was amused by the grotesque figure mounted upon a tall stool by Mr. Tayloe, and facing the school, a conical paper cap upon her head. Something in the livid, set face that gazed over and beyond their heads with blank, unseeing eyes, appalled the most thoughtless.