Billie did not say anything, but she gripped Vi’s hand hard. And she was still holding on to it when Miss Walters ascended the platform and a deep hush spread over the room. “As you all know,” came the clear, sweet voice of the head of Three Towers Hall, “I have come here this morning to announce the winners of the composition prize. “I and my associates have had difficulty in choosing the winning essays, for the reason that they are all so excellent. We are only sorry that we have not a prize to attach to each.” A buzz broke out in the audience, but when Miss Walters raised her hand it instantly died down again. “And now,” she said, “not to keep you any longer in suspense, we will announce the winners.” Billie’s grip on Vi’s hand tightened till it hurt. Then into the tense silence Miss Walters threw the bomb of her announcement. “The first prize goes to Amanda Peabody,” she said. “Will she please step up upon the platform?” CHAPTER XXIII—DISGRACED For a moment there was intense silence while Amanda rose triumphantly and flounced up to the platform. Then an amazed, angry buzz rose from the audience of indignant girls. Amanda, who was proverbially stupid, to have taken the prize from some of the brightest girls in the school! It was impossible—incredible! And yet it was only too true! Miss Walters, with a few words of congratulation, handed the prize—a fine set of books—to Amanda, and the latter swept haughtily back to her seat, triumph in every line of her figure as she passed the other pupils. She had beaten Billie Bradley at last! And her revenge was sweeter than even she had dreamed it would be. But Billie, tears of anger and disappointment stinging her eyes, felt sure that she had not been beaten fairly. Amanda had played a trick on her, on the rest of the contestants for the prize, on Miss Walters herself. But, in Teddy’s vocabulary, Amanda had “gotten away with it.” The prize was in her possession. “It’s a shame,” she heard in angry protest all about her. “She never did it honestly.” “Somebody ought to tell Miss Walters. She doesn’t know Amanda as well as we do.” But Miss Walters had raised her hand for silence, and in a few seconds the angry murmurs died down again. “I have the pleasure of awarding the second prize,” the principal announced, “to Beatrice Bradley. Will you step up on the platform, Billie?” The second prize! She didn’t want the second prize, Billie told herself, when Amanda had come in first. To march up there on the platform with that girl’s gloating eyes upon her—— But Vi and Laura were pulling her out of her seat, pushing her out into the aisle—and while Billie hesitated Miss Walters had impatiently repeated her summons. Someway Billie found her way to the platform, thanked Miss Walters incoherently for the fine volume of poetry which was the second prize, and stumbled back to happy oblivion among her schoolmates.