All other eyes were still charitably lowered. Several girls were crying now, but without a sound. And, as the last, awful moments drew near, even Bertha was hushed, and of all the odd hundreds of throats not one dared to cough. Laura's heart began to palpitate, for she felt the approach of the final climax, Mr. Strachey's periods growing ever slower and more massive. When, after a burst of eloquence which, the child felt, would not have shamed a Bishop, the Principal drew himself up to his full height, and, with uplifted arm, thundered forth: "Herewith, Miss Annie Johns, I publicly expel you from the school! Leave it, now, this moment, and never darken its doors again!"--when this happened, Laura was shot through by an ecstatic quiver, such as she had felt once only in her life before; and that was when a beautiful, golden-haired Hamlet, who had held a Ballarat theatre entranced for a whole evening, fell dead by Laertes' sword, to the rousing plaudits of the house. Breathing unevenly, she watched, lynx-eyed, every inch of Annie Johns' progress: watched her pick up her books, edge out of her seat and sidle through the rows of desks; watched her walk to the door with short jerky movements, mount the two steps that led to it, fumble with the handle, turn it, and vanish from sight; and when it was all over, and there was nothing more to see, she fell back in her seat with an audible sigh. It was too late after this for the winding of the snaky line about the streets and parks of East Melbourne, which constituted the boarders' daily exercise. They were despatched to stretch their legs in the garden. Here, as they walked round lawns and tennis-courts, they discussed the main event of the afternoon, and were a little more vociferous than usual, in an attempt to shake off the remembrance of a very unpleasant half-hour. "I bet you Sandy rather enjoyed kicking up that shindy." "DID you see Puggy's boots again? Girls, he MUST take twelves!" "And that old blubber of a Ziely's handkerchief! It was filthy. I told you yesterday I was sure she never washed her neck." Bertha, whose tears had dried as rapidly as sea-spray, gave Laura a dig in the ribs. "What's up with you, old Tweedledum? You're as glum as a lubra." "No, I'm not." "It's my belief that Laura was sorry for that pig," threw in Tilly. "Indeed I wasn't!" said Laura indignantly. "Sorry for a thief?" "I tell you I WASN'T!"--and this was true. Among the divers feelings Laura had experienced that afternoon, pity had not been included. "If you want to be chums with such a mangy beast, you'd better go to school in a lock-up." "I don't know what my father'd say, if he knew I'd been in the same class as a pickpocket," said the daughter of a minister from Brisbane. "I guess he wouldn't have let me stop here a week." Laura went one better. "My mother wouldn't have let me stop a day."