"Lucy Wood," Miss Rutherford began, when the door was closed and quiet, "you are the eldest. Please tell me all you can of this sad affair." There was one of the seven faces far more discomposed than the rest, a sweet and spiritual little countenance; it was tear-stained, red-eyed; the eager look, the trembling lips spoke some intimate cause of sympathy. Before the girl addressed had time to begin her answer, this other, one would have said in spite of herself, intervened with an almost agonised question. "Oh, Miss Rutherford, is Harriet really dead?" "Hush, hush!" said the lady, with a shocked look. "No, my dear, she is only badly hurt." "And she really won't die?" pleaded the child, with an instant brightening of look. "Certainly not, certainly not. Now be quiet, Maud, and let Lucy begin." Lucy, a sensible and matter-of-fact girl, made a straightforward narration, the facts of which were concurred in by her companions. Harriet Smales, it seemed, had been exercising upon Ida for some days her utmost powers of irritation, teasing her, as Lucy put it, "beyond all bearing." The cause of this was not unknown in the school, and Miss Rutherford remembered the incident from which the malice dated. Harriet had copied a sum in class from Ida's slate--she was always copying from somebody--and the teacher, who had somehow detected her, asked Ida plainly whether such was not the case. Ida made no reply, would not speak, which of course was taken as confirmatory evidence, and the culprit had accordingly received an imposition. Her spleen, thus aroused, Harriet vented upon the other girl, who, she maintained, ought to have stoutly denied the possibility of the alleged deceit, and so have saved her. She gave poor Ida no rest, and her persecution had culminated this afternoon; she began to "call Ida's mother names," the result of which was that the assailed one suddenly snatched up her slate, and, in an uncontrollable fit of passion, struck her tormentor a blow with it upon the forehead. "What did she call Ida's mother?" inquired Miss Rutherford, all at once changing her look curiously. "She called her a bad woman." "Was that all?" "No, please, Miss Rutherford," put in Maud eagerly. "She said she got her living in the streets. And it isn't true. Ida's mother's a lady, and doesn't sell things in the streets!" The teacher looked down and was silent. "I don't think I need ask any more questions," she said presently. "Run away home all of you. What is it, my dear?" Maud, she was about eleven, and small for her age, had remained behind, and was looking anxiously up into Miss Rutherford's face. "May I wait for Ida, please," she asked, "and--and walk home with her? We go the same way." "Not to-night, dear; no, not to-night. Ida Starr is in disgrace. She will not go home just yet. Run away, now, there's a good girl."