"Miss Fenton, why are you not working?" came the inquiry sharply from
Miss Pinwell's thin lips.

Lavinia Fenton withdrew the instrument of torture and Priscilla
Coupland's neck was left in peace. It was done so swiftly that Miss
Pinwell's glance, keen as it was, never detected the movement. But the
lady had her suspicions nevertheless, and she marched with the erectness
of a grenadier to where Lavinia Fenton sat with her eyes fixed upon her
copy book, apparently absorbed in inscribing over and over again the
moral maxim at the top of the page, and, it may be hoped, engrafting it
on her mind.

The young lady's industry did not deceive Miss Pinwell. Lavinia Fenton
was the black sheep--lamb perhaps is a more fitting word, she was but
seventeen--of the school. But somehow her peccadilloes were always
forgiven. She had a smile against which severity--even Miss
Pinwell's--was powerless.

"What were you doing just now when you were not writing?"

The head was slowly raised. The wealth of wavy brown hair fell back from
the broad smooth brow. The large limpid imploring eyes looked straight,
without a trace of guilt in them, at the thin-faced schoolmistress. The
beautiful mouth, the upper lip of which with its corners slightly
upturned was delightfully suggestive of a smile, quivered slightly but
not with fear, rather with suppressed amusement.

"Nothing madam," was the demure reply.

"Nothing? I don't believe you. Your hand was not on your book. Where was