School politics have been exciting these last few weeks, though in the stress and strain of home affairs I have had no time to report them. But Ernie has taken them very seriously, and for her sake we are glad the end has come. Yesterday the Sixth Grammar Grade was promoted, and the prize-winner’s name read aloud from the platform. Can you guess who it was?

Let me take the matter up where I dropped it. Though naturally much discouraged and depressed by her sudden fall from grace that fatal composition day, Ernie bravely determined to retrieve her shattered fortunes. In this resolve she was supported by Mary Hobart, Hatty Walker, and a host of other friends.

“It was nothing but a ghastly accident,” they urged, “helped along by Lulu Jennings; and, though, of course, a couple of failures will pull down your per cent., they need not entirely ruin it. You are cleverer than Lulu. Look at arithmetic alone, and the Visiting Board’s problems! She hasn’t solved one of them.”

“We can’t hold her entirely responsible for that,” returned Ernie, quaintly. “I am quite sure he never intended they should be solved.”

“But you have worked out answers to them,” retorted Mary.

“Yes,” Ernie admitted: “a different answer every day.”

The problems in question were certainly difficult. There were ten of them,—ingeniously composed by “the Visiting Board”; and it was rumoured among the girls that even Miss Horton, herself, could not obtain a correct solution. They were intended for practice-work during the term, on the express understanding that one of the set, no one could predict which, should be included in the final examinations.

Naturally, they were the subject of much and anxious discussion. Lulu Jennings, in particular, suffered agonies of apprehensive doubt. Arithmetic is not her strong point.

“I don’t think it’s fair,” she declared. “He just meant to muddle us. The idea of making up such stuff out of his own head! There isn’t any key, or any way to prove ’em, and the answers are not even in the back of Miss Horton’s teacher’s book. I know, because——”

“Because?” questioned Mary Hobart. And Lulu dropped her eyes, and coloured uncomfortably.

It was after her public disgrace that Ernie wrote out the entire set of problems in a blank-book purchased for the purpose, so that she might study them quietly at home. And how the child did wrestle!—shutting herself in the workshop Saturday after Saturday, till finally she discovered the correct solution! There could be no doubt. Worked out along certain intricate lines the problems could be proved!

The next morning, which happened to be the very day before examination, Ernie carried her precious book down to school.

“Coo-ee!” she yodeled to Mary Hobart, who formed one of a group of chattering girls on the second landing. “I have the answers!”

“Not to the Visiting Board’s problems?” returned Mary, excitedly.

“Yes,” Ernie replied, unable to repress her glee. “They are here!” tapping the book as she spoke. “And they are right, too. They prove!—all those I’ve had time for!”

At that moment Lulu Jennings brushed past the excited pair. Apparently she was deep in conversation with a friend, and noticed nothing.

“If only she guessed!” chuckled Ernestine.

“Well, for goodness’ sake don’t tell her!” warned Mary, the cautious. “I wouldn’t trust that girl with her own grandmother’s plated spoons.”

“Do you take me for a goose?” asked Ernie. “Let’s put our books up, and perhaps we’ll have time to eat an apple before the bell rings. I have a beauty in my blouse!”

So the two girls ran up to the classroom, where they found that Lulu had preceded them, slipped their books into their respective desks, and, returning to the schoolyard, divided the apple.

“I wish I could explain the problems to you, Mary dear,” Ernie said. “But, of course, it wouldn’t be fair. It was quite by chance I hit on the right way. You can imagine my joy! I have only had time to prove the first six, but the others must be right. I’ll work on them at noon.”

However, long before noon, Ernie slipped her hand into her desk to take out the beloved book, and reassure herself by a hasty glance through its pages. She owns several blank-books; one for spelling, a second for “home-work,” and a third for English. These were successively dragged out, and hastily thrust back again. With a queer little shock it became certain that the book containing the solution to the all-important problems was missing!

Ernie was puzzled, startled, but, just at first, she felt no suspicion.

Perhaps she had not put the book into her desk, after all. Perhaps she had dropped it on the landing in the hall. It was impossible to communicate her loss to Mary Hobart, who had been sent to the blackboard to demonstrate a proposition. So Ernie raised her hand and asked Miss Horton’s permission to leave the room to look for something. The request was granted.

Yet a hurried search of the stairways revealed nothing; and the more Ernie reflected, the more anxious she became. She returned to the classroom thoroughly puzzled and distressed.—When what was her amazement to discover the missing book lying in plain view on her desk!

Ernie took it up incredulously,—and was instantly conscious of a faint scent of musk.

She turned to Mary Hobart, who was just about to resume her seat, having finished her work at the board, and fairly hissed:—

“Smell of Lulu, Mary. Smell her! quick!!!”

Mary looked at Ernie in bewilderment. “I don’t want to,” she whispered back. “Why should I, I’d like to know?”

“Go on,” commanded Ernie, too excited to explain. “Smell her! You must!”

So Mary, with a puzzled and somewhat resentful air, inclined her head stiffly toward Lulu Jennings and began to sniff.

“Well?” questioned Ernie, with dilating eyes.

“Well,” returned Mary, crossly; “she smells of cheap perfume, as usual. It’s musk to-day. I hope you’re satisfied.”

“Yes,” returned Ernie, quietly. “And so, I haven’t a doubt, is Lulu. She has copied my problems! I’ll tell you after school.”

Certainly the evidence seemed conclusive enough, and Mary added still other links to the chain.

“Don’t you remember?” she said. “Lulu was at her desk when we put our things away this morning. While we were eating that apple, she must have taken the book; and no sooner did you leave the room to look for it, than she asked permission to put some stuff in the wastepaper-basket. I noticed, from the blackboard, that she paused at your desk on her way back. She must certainly have returned it then.”

Yet what was to be done? The affair was entirely too complicated to take to Miss Horton, even if Ernie could have made up her mind to that course.

“No,” she returned to Mary’s suggestion. “I just won’t. I’m no tell-tale. I’d rather give up all thought of the prize, even if I have worked so hard for it. If Lulu Jennings can enjoy the books earned this way, she’s welcome to ’em!” And Ernie thrust the fatal blank-book into the very bottom of her school-satchel, and snapped to the catch with a click!

The next morning examinations began, with arithmetic first as usual. Every girl in the class surveyed her paper anxiously, in search of the famous problem. It was there,—the ninth,—one of the four which Ernie had neglected to prove. At first this was rather a disappointment; but, having given up all hope of winning the prize, Ernie quickly dismissed the matter and set quietly to work, merely determining to pass as creditably as she could.

The moments flew quickly by. Absorbed in her calculations, Ernie forgot all feeling of pique or disappointment; nor did she again think of Lulu Jennings till, having finished her paper, she passed it under final review, when something struck her eye!

She gave a little bounce in her seat, and caught her breath sharply. The answer obtained to the all-important problem was different to-day from that which she had written out before!

She remembered distinctly what that other answer was, and went hastily over the work before her to see where the mistake lay. But it was right. It proved! Figure by figure Ernie followed the intricate proposition, to which, without a doubt, she had at last obtained the correct solution! What had been wrong before she did not know, nor did she much care.

Instinctively her glance sought Lulu Jennings, who sat with head bent low above her desk. At the same moment Lulu raised her eyes. She did not look at Ernie, but cautiously toward Miss Horton, who was standing at the blackboard with her back toward the class. Lulu, seeing this, darted a stealthy hand into her desk, and brought out a little roll of paper which she placed in her lap, at the same moment throwing her handkerchief over it.

Ernie did not wait for anything further, but, rising from her seat, carried her paper to Miss Horton’s desk. No one paid any attention, as it is customary for the girls to put up their papers when finished. On her way back Ernie stopped beside Lulu just long enough to whisper,—

“I wouldn’t bother to copy that. It’s wrong.”

Lulu turned first white, then red. She clutched the paper in her lap. Whether she heeded Ernie’s warning makes little difference. The mark she received was not especially creditable; and Ernie, who passed a nearly perfect examination, came out head, and was awarded the prize, after all.

“Just think, Elizabeth!” she chortled. “Five dollars’ worth of books! We’ll fill up the bottom shelf of the mahogany bookcase, again. I have my list all made out:—Water Babies, for Robin; The Conquest of Granada, for Hazard; Longfellow’s poems for you, dear,—and The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, for mother. The Visiting Board read the titles aloud from the platform, and said it was ‘a remarkably comprehensive selection.’”

“But, Ernie,” I expostulated, “what have you for yourself?”

“Pshaw!” says Ernie—“I told you I was going to use them for birthday presents. My birthday is past; and besides I wanted nice editions, and I really think I’ve made the money go as far as anybody could!”

“It is very sweet of you, honey,” I said; “but we will share that Longfellow. Aren’t Mary and the other girls delighted?”

“Indeed they are,” admitted Ernie, with an ingenuous little skip. “I’m quite the Heroine of their young hearts! It’s lots of fun, Elizabeth. Only, I’m sorry for Lulu. It must be horrid for her to look back and think how mean she has been,—and all for nothing, too!”