“I wouldn’t leave my handkerchief on purpose of course,” Billie pointed out. “I might have dropped it by accident, though.” “But how did they get the hanky,” wondered Vi, wide-eyed at this example of depravity. “Probably stole it out of my pocket when I wasn’t looking,” said Billie contemptuously, and at that Amanda made a show of defense. “You needn’t call me a thief, Billie Bradley!” she exclaimed, but Laura cut her short with a flippant observation. “Would you rather she would call Miss Walters?” she asked, which effectively closed the girl’s mouth. “Let’s make ’em clean up,” suggested Billie. “I’d call Miss Walters, only they’re not worth spoiling her sleep for. Come on over here, you two, and get busy.” “We won’t do it,” said Amanda, but as Billie started toward her she quite suddenly changed her mind. “Oh, all right,” she said angrily, as she flounced over to the desk, pulling the limp “Shadow” after her. “We’ll do it this time. But you just look out, Billie Bradley. I’ll make you pay for this.” Laura struck a dramatic attitude. “Look out,” she cried. “The worm is turning. Let us nip it in the bud!” It was all right for them to laugh at Amanda’s discomfiture then and treat the whole thing as a joke, but in the morning they were not quite sure that they had done the right thing. “I think we ought to have reported her to Miss Walters,” worried Vi. “Then she and the Shadow would have been expelled, or suspended at least, and we would have had no more trouble with them. As it is——” “Oh, don’t be an old gloom hound,” commanded Billie, seizing her chum round the waist and whirling her about the room in a fantastic dance. “They’ve never been able to do anything to us yet, so what’s the use of worrying?” “Sure,” agreed Laura, busy marking passages in her “Life of Washington.” “That’s what I say. We’re too many for ’em.” But in spite of their optimism, in their hearts the girls decided to watch Amanda and her cowardly “Shadow” more closely than ever in the future. And the girls would have been put even more on their guard if they could have peeped into the library one afternoon and overheard the curious conversation that took place between two girls seated in a far corner of the big room. “I’ve got it at last!” gloated one of the girls, who was no other than the plotting Amanda herself. Eliza, of course, was her inevitable companion. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said the latter rather snappishly. For, since the fiasco in Miss Race’s room, she had not entered into Amanda’s schemes quite so whole-heartedly as she had before. “I don’t see why you should be so pleased about finding a musty old book.” “Of course you don’t see,” said Amanda, patronizingly. “That’s what I’m going to explain to you.” She paused a moment, regarding the “musty old book” in her hand lovingly. Eliza moved impatiently in the seat beside her and Amanda grinned at her. “You remember I told you I was going to try for the composition prize?”