Page:Angela Brazil--the leader of the lower school.djvu/259

245 out in my cloak ought to own up, and if she doesn't, she's a mean, detestable, contemptible sneak!"

"Shielding herself at your expense!" added Hetty indignantly.

Leonora turned as crimson as the woolwork she was stitching.

"I never thought of it in that way! It really never struck me!" she gasped. "I'm sure I've no wish to shield myself at anybody's expense. Why, if you want to know, it was I who went out in your waterproof and galoshes."

Leonora's announcement made the sensation it deserved.

"You! You!" cried the amazed girls.

"But why did you go?"

"How could you do such a thing?"

"Why didn't you tell?"

"I went for a very simple reason," replied Leonora coolly. "You know how fond I am of sweets, and what an abominably mean rule there is here about our not buying them. Well, I just couldn't stand doing without my chocolates, so I used to dodge out whenever I dared to that little shop in Mansfield Road, and buy some. On that particular wet evening I was in a fearful hurry to go before I began practising, so I rushed to the hall cupboard and seized on the first waterproof and hat and galoshes that came to hand. I didn't know they were Gipsy's."

"And yet you let her bear the blame!" exclaimed Dilys heatedly.

"I thought, as she hadn't really done it, she'd very soon clear herself. She could have 'proved an alibi'