"Miss Forsythe," she said, as she held it out to me all wrapped up in
tissue paper and tied with a blood red string, "I will have to return
your present to you, with thanks. I cannot keep a bracelet given me by
a girl whose father would go like a chicken thief and rob a neighbor's
shed of a valuable thing like an invention. Please excuse me!"
For a minute I stood struck dumb, and watched Belle's pink gingham
skirt switch as she walked through the door of the school-room. They
had all the lunch spread on the flat rock, and I thought were waiting
for me while I put my desk in order just after the bell rang. And even
while I watched Belle I was conscious of Mamie Sue's fat expression of
distress as she paused with a biscuit spread with jam half-way to her
mouth. The Willis girls looked struck even dumber than usual, and as
if they didn't know what to do. I didn't give them a chance to decide
on anything. I picked up my hat from the ground and walked out the
gate with my head as high, as if my honor had not been laid low.
I was walking just as fast as I could past the cottage, hoping that
nobody would see me before I got here to my room to realize my agony
myself, when Roxanne ran out of the door to catch me at the gate.
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