"Yes! It was Ellen who told me. I was in the hall, and she came out of the kitchen and said, `Oh, Mademoiselle, do you know? Your beautiful bottle is broken!'" Mademoiselle's voice broke; she held out the pieces and exclaimed in broken tones, "And I ran--and I saw--this!" "I am sorry! I am grieved! But we must get to the bottom of this mystery. Things do not fall over and break by themselves. Girls, do any of you know anything about this? If so, please speak out at once, and don't be afraid to tell the truth. If by any chance one of you has unintentionally broken Mademoiselle's bottle, I know you will be as deeply grieved as she can be herself; but the only thing you can do now is to explain, and beg her forgiveness. Carelessness it must have been, and you cannot hope to escape altogether without punishment, but remember deception is fifty times worse. I have no mercy on a girl who knows she is guilty, and lets her companions rest under the shadow of suspicion. Now, I ask you again, do you know anything at all of the cause of this accident?" There was a unanimous burst of denial from all parts of the room; but different girls took the question in different ways, as was natural to the different characters. Some looked grieved, some indignant, a few showed suspicions of tears, and Pixie looked so thoroughly scared and miserable that more than one eye rested curiously upon her. Miss Phipps glanced around with her keen, scrutinising glance, then pressed her lips together, and said sharply-- "This becomes serious! You all deny it? Very well, I must find out the truth for myself. Call Ellen, please, Mademoiselle. I am sorry to have such a painful ending to our happy holiday, but we cannot go to bed with this cloud hanging over us. Ellen, Mademoiselle tells me that you found the scent-bottle broken when you went into her room just now to turn down the bed!" Ellen straightened herself and fumbled miserably with the corner of her apron. She loved all the girls, and had known many of them for years; for though other maids might come and go, Ellen, like the brook, went on for ever. She had been a servant in the Phipps family, and had accompanied "her young lady" when Holly House was bought and the school first founded. Matron, nurse, general factotum, and refuge in time of trouble, it would have been as easy to suspect her of duplicity as Miss Phipps herself. She was wretched now because she feared that her "children" might be in trouble, and her "children" knew it, and loved her for her fear. "I did, Miss Emily. It was lying just where it usually stands, with the glass piled up in a little heap." "It looked, then, as if someone had arranged it so? Not as if it had been, say, blown over by any chance?" "It couldn't have blown over, Miss Emily! It was too heavy. And it wasn't near the window, either."