"I suppose I may as well tell everything," she volunteered sulkily. "Yes--I did want to get the tennis championship, and I altered the names because I didn't think I had a chance otherwise. About that essay, it was Gwen Gascoyne's. She wrote it, but she sold it to me for a sovereign." "And you passed it off as your own?" "I'd paid for it, so I just copied it. I couldn't see where the harm came in!" said Netta doggedly. "Netta Goodwin, have you absolutely no sense of right and wrong, or any vestige of conscience?" "I can't see that I'm worse than some other people," replied Netta, with a spiteful glance at Gwen. "Gwen Gascoyne, did you sell this essay to Netta?" "Yes, Miss Roscoe," gulped Gwen, covered with shame, and too much embarrassed to offer any explanation. "I shall have a word with you later on. Netta, by your own confession you admit appropriating a schoolfellow's work last term, and altering the voting papers this afternoon. Forgery is a very ugly word and one which I am sorry to use, but there is no other name for what you have done. In all the years of my headmistress-ship here such a thing has not occurred before. I have had unruly and disobedient girls occasionally, but in the whole of my experience never a girl so deliberately bad as you. It is well for the school that this has occurred, and that I have discovered your true character; your influence must have been most pernicious, and I can only hope that it has not already done harm. It is, of course, impossible for me to allow you to remain at Rodenhurst. It is the first time I have been obliged to expel a pupil, and I much regret the necessity, but I feel that to keep you would be to retain a source of moral infection. You will go home at once. Your books and any other articles belonging to you will be sent after you, and I shall write to your parents, informing them of the circumstances under which you have been sent away. I am grieved for the sorrow which I know it will cause them. Go!" Miss Roscoe pointed peremptorily to the door, and Netta, all her jaunty, self-confident airs gone for once, with downcast eyes that did not dare to meet the scorn of her schoolfellows, and white lips that quivered with passion, slunk ignominiously from the room. The Principal waited a few minutes to allow her time to go downstairs, then she ordered Ida and Peggie back to their own classroom, and turned with a sigh to Gwen. "You will come with me to the study," she said briefly. Gwen followed in a state of abject misery. Was she never to finish reaping that harvest of tares, the sowing of which she had already so bitterly repented. One initial slip had indeed plunged her into undreamt-of trouble. "Well, Gwen, you had better tell me all about this unhappy business," said Miss Roscoe as soon as they were alone. "Let us get to the bottom of everything this time, and leave nothing concealed."