Page:Angela Brazil--the leader of the lower school.djvu/216

 , having, as she deemed, successfully detected Gipsy in her misdoings, was determined to force her into making a full confession. The girl's repeated denials she regarded as mere stubborn effrontery, and after several stormy scenes she had locked her up in the dressing-room, to try if a spell of solitary confinement would reduce her to submission. Poor Gipsy, agitated, overstrung, burning with a sense of fierce anger against the injustice of her summary condemnation, had faced the Principal almost like an animal at bay, and defying her utterly, had persisted in sticking without deviation to her own version of the story.

"You'll gain nothing by this obstinacy!" stormed Miss Poppleton. "I'll make you see who is in authority here! Do you actually imagine I shall allow a girl like you to set herself against the head of the school? Here you stay until you own the truth and beg my pardon."

"Then I'll stop here till I'm grown up, for I've told the truth already," returned Gipsy desperately.

She had kept up a brave front in opposition to Miss Poppleton's accusations; but after the key had turned 204