Directly half-past twelve struck, she ran to the top of the garden and hid herself under a tree. There she crouched, her fingers in her ears, her heart thumping as if it would break. Till the dinner-bell rang. Then she was forced to emerge--and no tottering criminal, about to face the scaffold, has ever had more need of Dutch courage than Laura in this moment. Peeping round the corner of the path she saw the fateful group: M. P. the centre of four gesticulating figures. She loitered till they had scattered and disappeared; then with shaking legs crept to the house. At the long tables the girls still stood, waiting for Mr. Strachey; and the instant Laura set foot in the hall, five pairs of eyes caught her, held her, pinned her down, as one pins a butterfly to a board. She was much too far gone to think of tossing her head and braving things out, now that the crisis had come. Pale, guilty, wretched, she sidled to her seat. This was near Maria's, and, as she passed, Maria leant back. "You VILE little liar!" "How's that shy little mouse of a girl we had here a month or two ago?" Mr. Shepherd had inquired. "Let me see--what was her name again?" To which Miss Isabella had replied: "Well, you know, Robby dear, you really hardly saw her. You had so much to do, poor boy, just when she was here. Her name was Laura--Laura Rambotham." And Mrs. Shepherd gently: "Yes, a nice little girl. But very young for her age. And SO shy." "You wretched little lying sneak!" In vain Laura wept and protested. "You made me do it. I should never have told a word, if it hadn't been for you." This point of view enraged them. "What? You want to put it on us now, do you? ... you dirty little skunk! To say WE made you tell that pack of lies?--Look here: as long as you stay in this blooming shop, I'll never open my mouth to you again!" "Someone ought to tell old Gurley and have her expelled. That's all she's fit for. Spreading disgusting stories about people who've been kind to her. They probably only asked her there out of charity. She's as poor as dirt." "Wants her bottom smacked--that's what I say!" Thus Maria, and, with her, Kate Horner. Tilly was cooler and bitterer. "I was a dashed fool ever to believe a word. I might have known her little game. She? Why, when I took her out to see my cousin Bob, she couldn't say bo to a goose. He laughed about her afterwards like anything; said she ought to have come in a perambulator, with a nurse.--YOU make anyone in love with you--you!" And Tilly spat, to show her disdain. "What have they been saying to you, Laura?" whispered Chinky, pale and frightened. "Whatever is the matter?" "Mind your own business and go away," sobbed Laura. "I am, I'm going," said Chinky humbly.--"Oh, Laura, I WISH you had that ring." "Oh, blow you and your ring! I hate the very name of it," cried Laura, maddened.--And retreating to a lavatory, which was the only private place in the school, she wept her full.