Page:Girls of Central High on the Stage.djvu/142

132 gabbling away to Nell Agnew and Jess "sixteen to the dozen," as she would have said herself. When out of a door popped the bespectacled Miss Carrington, grimmer and more stern than usual.

"Indeed, Miss! are you supposed to rattle away like that about matters entirely foreign to your lessons, on the way to class room?" demanded the teacher.

"Oh, indeed, Miss Carrington," exclaimed the contrite Bobby (she always was contrite when caught in a fault, for all her sauciness and lightness arose from thoughtlessness) "I really forgot—I did not mean to make a noise in the corridor."

"Humph! did not mean—did not mean? What excuse is that, pray?"

"Not a very good one, I am afraid," admitted Bobby. "But I truly did not intend to break a rule. We were all so much interested in the play"

"Yes. Quite so. It is evident that I will get little out of you young ladies until the matter of this silly play is settled. I presume you are one of the contestants, Miss Clara?"

"Not at all, Miss Carrington," said Bobby, demurely. "I did start to write one. It—it would have been a tragedy based upon several