"
"There they were, and she took 'em," said the broad-back. Oh, what
a look Miss Grogram gave her! "Took them! of course I took them.
That is, you took them as much as I did. They were things that we
found lying about."
"What things?" asked Miss Macmanus, in a peculiarly strong-minded
tone.
Miss Grogram seemed to be for a moment silenced. I had been
ignored, as I have said, and my existence forgotten; but now I
observed that the eyes of the culprits were turned towards me,--the
eyes, that is, of four of them. Mrs. Jones looked at me from
beneath her fan; the two girls glanced at me furtively, and then
their eyes fell to the lowest flounces of their frocks.
Miss Grogram turned her spectacles right upon me, and I fancied that
she nodded her head at me as a sort of answer to Miss Macmanus. The
five pupils opened their mouths and eyes wider; but she of the broad
back was nothing abashed. It would have been nothing to her had
there been a dozen gentlemen in the room. "We just found a pair of
black--." The whole truth was told in the plainest possible
language.
"Oh, Aunt Sally!" "Aunt Sally, how can you?" "Hold your tongue,
Aunt Sally!"
"And then Miss Grogram just cut them up with her scissors,"
continued Aunt Sally, not a whit abashed, "and gave us each a bit,
only she took more than half for herself.
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