It was hardly done when a knock sounded at the door upon the passage.  “Young ladies!” a voice called,—­Madam Routh’s.

She and her friends had driven down from the Notch by sunset and moonlight.  Nobody had said anything to her of the disturbance when she came in:  her arrival had rather stopped the complaints that had begun; for people are not malignant, after all, as a general thing, and there is a curious propensity in human nature which cools off indignation even at the greatest crimes, just as the culprit is likely to suffer.  We are apt to check the foot just as we might have planted it upon the noxious creature, and to let off great state criminals on parole.  Madam Routh had seen the bright light and the gathering about the west wing.  She had caught some sounds of the commotion.  She made her way at once to look after her charge.

Sin Saxon was not a pupil now, and there was no condign punishment actually to fear; but her heart stood still a second, for all that, and she realized that she had been on the verge of an “awful scrape.”  It was bad enough now, as Madam Routh stood there gravely silent.  She could not approve.  She was amazed to see Miss Craydocke present, countenancing and matronizing.  But Miss Craydocke was present, and it altered the whole face of affairs.  Her eye took in, too, the modification of the room,—­quite an elegant little private parlor as it had been made.  The young men were gathered decorously about the doorway and upon the platform, one or two only politely assisting within.  They had taken this cue as readily as the other; indeed, they were by no means aware that this was not the issue intended from the beginning, long as the joke had been allowed to go on, and their good-humor and courtesy had been instantly restored.  Miss Craydocke, by one master-stroke of generous presence of mind, had achieved an instantaneous change in the position, and given an absolutely new complexion to the performance.

“It is late, young ladies,” was all Madam Routh’s remark at length.

“They gave up their German early on purpose; it was a little surprise they planned,” Miss Craydocke said, as she moved to meet her.

And then Madam Routh, with wise, considerate dignity, took her cue.  She even came forward to the table and accepted a little fruit; stayed five minutes perhaps, and then, without a spoken word, her movement to go broke up, with unmistakable intent, the party.  Fifteen minutes after, all was quiet in the west wing.

But Sin Saxon, when the doors closed at either hand, and the girls alone were left around the fragments of their feast, rushed impetuously across toward Miss Craydocke, and went down beside her on her knees.

“Oh, you dear, magnificent old Christian!” she cried out, and laid her head down on her lap, with little sobs, half laughter and half tears.

“There, there!”—­and Miss Craydocke softly patted her golden hair, and spoke as she would soothe a fretted and excited child.