But for Margery, who would go patiently over the lesson time after time with her indolent friend, Queenie would often have been in disgrace, for she was not particularly fond of books, and lacked the application necessary to a thorough scholar. Once, when she had committed a grave misdemeanor which had been strictly forbidden on pain of heavy punishment, Margery was suspected and found guilty, and though she knew Queenie to be the culprit, she did not speak, but stood up bravely to receive the chastisement which was to be administered in the presence of the whole school, and was to be unusually severe as a warning to others. Margery was very pale as she took her place upon the platform, and held out her beautiful white arm and hand to the master, and her blue eyes glanced just once wistfully and pleadingly toward the corner where Queenie sat, her own eyes shut, and her fists clenched tightly together until the first blow fell upon the innocent Margery. Then swift as lightning she went to the rescue, and before the astounded master knew what she was doing she had wrested the ruler from him, and hurling it across the room sprang into a chair, and had him by the collar, and even by the hair, while she cried out: “You vile, nasty man, don’t you touch Margery again. If you do I will pull every hair out of your head. You might have known she didn’t do it. It was _I_, and I am _nastier_ and _viler_ than you, for I kept still just because I was afraid to be hurt, and let her bear it for me. _I_ am the guilty one. _I_ did it, and she knew it and never told. Beat me to a pumice if you want to. I deserve it:” and jumping from the chair and crossing the floor, Queenie picked up the ruler, and giving it to the master, held out her little fat hand for the punishment she merited. But by this time the entire school had become demoralized, as it were, and the pupils thronged around their bewildered teacher, begging him to spare Queenie, who became almost as much a heroine as Margery, because that, notwithstanding her cowardice at the first, she had at the last shown so much genuine moral courage and nobleness.