The days passed in a truly melancholy fashion, and, perhaps, for the first time the girls fully appreciated the old privileges of freedom and trust which were now forfeited. There was a feeble little attempt at a joke and a laugh in the school at Dora's expense. The most frivolous of the girls whispered of her as she passed as "the muddy stream;" but no one took up the fun with avidity--the shadow of somebody's sin had fallen too heavily upon all the bright young lives.