Christian life -- Juvenile fiction; Girls -- Conduct of life -- Juvenile fiction; Grandmothers -- Juvenile fiction
"The horrid, mean, hateful sneak!" Olive, in her anger and contempt
could not find enough opprobrious epithets. "She’s got all her tables,
and a whole lot of hints copied out, I do believe, and of course, now
she’ll go and beat Monica; but I’ll be even with her! A nice scrape
she’ll get into!" And Olive chuckled to herself at the thought of what
was in store. "Perhaps she’ll be expelled, and a good job, too. I’d
better nudge Gipsy, and make her see, in case the sneak goes and
declares she didn’t cheat."
Olive glanced over into the other corner again, but--nothing wrong was
to be seen! All trace of the notes had vanished, and Lily was neatly
ruling her manuscript paper as if no such thing as cheating had ever
entered her head!
"Oh, you wretch!" And Olive felt as if she could have done anything to
her, so exasperated was she to think that she had been "done"; for not
once again, during the time that remained for the arithmetic paper, did
she catch a glimpse of the missing paper. At length the gong sounded,
and whether completed or not, the girls had to fasten their sheets
together and hand the papers in to Miss Churchill.
They were glad enough to stretch their cramped limbs, and let their
tongues loose during the recreation that followed, in discussing the
questions and comparing their answers. Olive, of course, told Monica
what she had seen Lily doing, and how vexed she was to think she could
not prove it to Miss Churchill, if she were to tell her.
"Oh, let it be," said Monica, who loathed telling tales; "she’ll be so
mad if you tell, and she’ll be sure to declare it wasn’t a crib."
"I shall tell if she comes out top."
And Monica could not persuade her otherwise.
"We shall know to-morrow," said Olive as they entered the school door.
But in less than five minutes after the words had escaped her lips, part
of the truth had come to light, and it happened in this way.
Lily (who was under the impression that her neat little scheme for
aiding her memory had been quite unobserved by any one except Maggie,
who had benefited by it, too), already, in imagination, saw her own name
at the head of the list. But she thought it would be just as well to
make assurance doubly sure, by securing Monica’s downfall, if it were
possible, in case she should be perilously near. So, as she passed up
to the desk with her paper, taking care to be the last girl who filed
out, she very quietly dropped her little paper of tables, etc., on the
floor of Monica’s desk, in such a manner as to make it appear as if it
had slipped off Monica’s lap, when she rose to go out.
"Now we shall be quits!" was her amiable thought, as she went with the
rest into the playground. She bound Maggie, with promises of many good
things, to absolute secrecy, and returned to the classroom to await
developments.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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