"I wish you'd mind your own business. I was only scribbling nonsense to try my new pen," said Muriel angrily, tearing up her piece of paper. "Do leave me alone!" Patty sat down at her own desk, and, taking out her history book, was soon deep in an effort to master the dates which Miss Harper had set for the next day's lesson. Muriel went on for some little time arranging her pencils and indiarubbers in a very discontented and annoyed manner. "Look here, Patty, I wish you'd go!" she said at last. "Go! Why?" asked Patty. "Because you disturb me." "But I wasn't saying it aloud." "It doesn't matter. I can learn things much better when I'm quite alone." "You're never alone at prep." "No, I wish I were. I could get through the work in half the time. You're interrupting me now by talking." "Then I won't talk," said Patty, taking up her book, which she had laid down; "I won't say a single word." "The very sight of anyone in the room is enough to stop me learning properly. I haven't done a single thing since you came here." Patty was on the point of saying, "It's your own fault, then;" but the thought of Uncle Sidney stepped in, and she refrained. "What do you want me to do?" she asked instead. "To go and leave me in peace. You can learn your dates in a corner of the lecture room or in the studio." It was rather hard to be thus ordered away from the quiet place which she had chosen, and Patty stood hesitating whether to comply or not, when the question was settled by the ringing of the tea bell, and both girls were obliged to hurry to the refectory. Patty did not think much of this incident at the time, only setting it down to Muriel's caprice, and being quite accustomed to her cousin's ill humours; but in the light of after events it wore a different aspect. One morning at nine o'clock, when Miss Rowe had taken the register, and the girls were in their places waiting for school to begin, Miss Harper entered the room with an extremely grave look on her face. Instead of commencing the lesson as usual, she stood for a few moments without speaking, and her silence filled her class with an uneasy apprehension that all was not right. "Girls," she said at last, "something has happened which gives me more pain than anything else I have experienced during the five years I have taught at The Priory. Yesterday the monitress, when tidying the room, found this book, which she very rightly brought at once to me. I regret to tell you that it is a translation of Caesar's _De Bello Gallico_; in fact, what is commonly known as a 'crib'. That any girl in my class could so have lost her self-respect as to condescend to use it to prepare her lesson, fills me with shame, as it shows such an absolute lowering of the high standard of honour which we have always tried to maintain. I ask each of you now, do you know who is the owner of this book, or can you account for its presence here?"