form and listened, holding
Karen's dirty German reading-book by the tip edge. She looked
continually at the book but she didn't understand a word,--I'll wager
anything you like she didn't,--for she never turned over the page when
she should have. I saw that plainly. On a seat near the door sat Madam
Tellefsen, who had come to listen to Mina; she did not put on any airs,
though. She never once pretended to understand German, but laid the book
down beside her on the seat and sat there sweltering in her French shawl
and looking rather helpless.

Enough of that. I was just carving my name on my desk-lid--very deep and
nice it was to be--when all at once I noticed that Mr. Gorrisen was
looking at me. He stared as if he were staring right through me, stared
steadily as he came across the room.

Oh, my unlucky ear-tip! His fingers held it as tight as a vise. Up I
must get from my seat and across the floor was I led by the ear to the
corner of the room. There he let go of me.

Well! Imagine that! A pretty sight I made standing in the corner on
Examination Day! If only Mrs. White and Madam Tellefsen had not been
sitting there! They would surely go and tattle about it all over town.

Truly I would not stand there any longer. Mr. Gorrisen was reading a
piece aloud just then, so all at once I lay flat down on the floor and
crept over to the desks. Once I had got under the desks, it was easy
enough. Kima Pirk gave me a horrid kick in the back, and Karen whacked
my head when I was directly under her desk, but that was only because I
pinched them as I passed. I could hear them all whispering and
whispering above me--it was great fun--and I crept farther and farther.
I thought I would go to the last desk, you see. There, now I had reached
it. I got up and settled myself in the seat, wearing a most innocent
expression.

I looked at Mrs. White. Her face seemed to get sharper and narrower just
from severity; but Madam Tellefsen laughed so that she had to hold the
end of her French shawl over her face. I had got very warm and my hair
was very dusty from that expedition under the desks, but I didn't mind
that.

Fully five minutes passed before Mr. Gorrisen saw me. But all at once
when I had begun to feel pretty safe, came:

"Why, Inger Johanne! Have you walked out of the corner without
permission?"

"No, I have not walked, Mr. Gorrisen," said I.

"She crept," the others murmured faintly.

"She crept," said Kima aloud from her d