"It is not true, Miss McPherson. I did not turn over one thing. I took up the 'Lady of the Lake' and read a little, and then I laid it down, took the volume of Goldsmith, and carried it away. I have no more to say." "I am sure I don't know what to think," said Miss McPherson, much perplexed. "I should say it was all very plain," said Miss Meeks, not perplexed at all, as, indeed, people seldom are who have made up their minds beforehand. "Here is positive evidence on one side, and simple denial on the other." "Good!" thought Antoinette. "You might have held your tongue, Miss Stanfield." But another witness was to the fore on whom she had not calculated. Elizabeth Howell had come a little late and sat down quietly by the door. She now rose up, tall, fair, and prim, as delicate as an August lily, in her light-gray bombazine and clean muslin kerchief and apron. "I should like to speak to thee in private, Friend McPherson." "What can she have to say?" thought Antoinette, but without much misgiving. "She does not know anything about the matter. I took care of that." After a few minutes' conversation, Miss McPherson opened the door of her private room and called— "Miss Meeks, will you come in? Miss Burns, Miss Stanfield, Miss Antoinette Diaments, Miss Settson, please come also. The young ladies will recite their French grammar to Miss Jessy." The party tolerably filled the little room. Elizabeth looked a little flushed, and Miss McPherson both grieved and angry. "You will please listen, Miss Meeks and young ladies, to what Elizabeth Howell has to say." "First, if Friend McPherson pleases, I should like, Calista, to hear thee describe the needle-case." Calista did so, taxing her memory to be exact in every particular. "Precisely so!" said Elizabeth. "I saw Antoinette Diaments at her cousin Richard Whitecar's, in Graywich, and she had and was using just such a case as Calista describes." "How could you see it, I should like to know, when I put it in my pocket before you came into the room?" asked Antoinette, unguardedly. "Then you admit that you had it!" said Miss McPherson. Antoinette saw she had betrayed herself, and was sullenly silent. "Please answer her question, Elizabeth."