Enid waited a moment to let her pass, then, following, found all the class collected in a group outside the pantry door, talking over the examination and comparing the answers to the sums. "What have you got for No. 5, Vera?" said Kitty Harrison. "Wasn't it a most horribly difficult one?" "Dreadful! I couldn't do it at all. I got my statements in such a muddle, I had to leave it." "What's your answer, Muriel?" asked Cissie Gardiner. "270 bales of silk, but I don't believe it's right." "Most of the others have 340 bales." "Which others?" "Why, Patty Hirst, and Beatrice Wynne, and Ella Johnson. Patty has most of her sums right, I think." "She may well have," sneered Maud Greening, "if she copies other people's," she added under her breath. "I don't even look at anyone else when I'm working," observed Muriel, pointedly. "We've never had cheating in the Upper Fourth before," put in Vera Clifford. "It's only the kind of thing one might expect, though," said Kitty Harrison. "Some people aren't as particular as we are." Poor Patty, who was standing near, flushed red with indignation at these imputations, but did not know how to defend herself. Enid, however, flew to the rescue. "Look here!" she cried. "If you've anything you want to say, I wish you'd say it straight out, instead of these back shots. If you think Patty was trying to cheat this morning, I can tell you you're much mistaken." "Oh! you've taken up Patty Hirst," said Maud, "and of course you say she's always in the right. I'm afraid it's no use your trying to make excuses for her." "I don't want to," declared Enid. "I only want the truth, and Muriel knows perfectly well that it was mostly her fault." "I don't know anything about it," said Muriel. "I can't help people looking over my shoulder." "Not when you ask them to!" "I don't know what you mean." "Copying is called sneaking in boys' schools," said Kitty Harrison. "And so are other things," said Enid. "Look, girls! what do you think of this? I saw Muriel pass it to Patty during the exam." She drew the piece of paper out of her pocket and handed it round for everybody to see. It was written in Muriel's rather peculiar handwriting, so there was no possibility of a mistake. There it was in black and white: "How do you state Question 5? Ought the answer to be in bales of silk or days?" It was Muriel's turn now to flush red; she really had not a word to say for herself, and turned hastily away. Her three friends looked extremely blank, and Maud Greening murmured something about a mistake. "Well," exclaimed Cissie Gardiner, "who talked about cheating, I should like to know?" "And said it was called sneaking?" said Maggie Woodhall. "I think some people can be very deceitful," said Winnie Robinson. "She oughtn't to have been going to show Muriel how to work sums in the middle of the exam., though," said May Firth.