The seven witnesses remained, solemnly seated at their desks, all anxious-looking.
"Lucy Wood," Miss Rutherford began, when the door was closed and quiet, "you are the eldest.

Please tell me all you can of this sad affair." There was one of the seven faces far more discomposed than the rest, a sweet and spiritual little countenance; it was tear-stained, red-eyed; the eager look, the trembling lips spoke some intimate cause of sympathy.

Before the girl addressed had time to begin her answer, this other, one would have said in spite of herself, intervened with an almost agonised question.
"Oh, Miss Rutherford, is Harriet really dead ?" "Hush, hush!" said the lady, with a shocked look.

"No, my dear, she is only badly hurt." "And she really won't die ?" pleaded the child, with an instant brightening of look.
"Certainly not, certainly not.

Now be quiet, Maud, and let Lucy begin." Lucy, a sensible and matter-of-fact girl, made a straightforward narration, the facts of which were concurred in by her companions.
Harriet Smales, it seemed, had been exercising upon Ida for some days her utmost powers of irritation, teasing her, as Lucy put it, "beyond all bearing." The cause of this was not unknown in the school, and Miss Rutherford remembered the incident from which the malice dated.