likes. As soon as the snow comes we are going to have tobogganing
parties at Hainfeld or Lilienfeld.

December 3rd. Nearly a whole month has passed without my writing, but I
must write to-day! There's been such a row in the German lesson!! We got
back the compositions in which Hella and I, the 2 Ehrenfelds, Brauner,
Edith Bergler, and Kuhnelt, had not put a single comma. Nothing would
have been found out had not that idiot Brauner put in commas first
and then scratched them out. We had agreed that if the Prof. noticed
anything we would say we had meant to go through them together before
the lesson, and to decide where to put in commas, but that we had had no
time. Now the silly fool has given away the whole show. He is going to
bring the matter before the staff meeting. But after all, it's simply
_impossible_ to give 6 girls out of 25 a bad conduct mark.

December 4th. The head mistress came to inspect the German lesson
to-day. Afterwards she said that she expected us to make all the
knowledge which Frau Doktor M. had instilled into us for 3 years, the
firm foundation of our further development in the higher classes. In the
English lesson she referred to the more restricted use of punctuation
marks in English; and afterwards we 6 _sinners_ were summoned to the
office. The whole school knew about the trouble and was astonished at
our courage, especially the lower classes; the Fifth and the Sixth were
rather annoyed that we in the Fourth had dared to do it. The head
gave us a terrible scolding, saying that it was an unexampled piece
of impudence, and that we were not doing credit to Frau Doktor M. Then
Hella said very modestly: "Frau Direktorin, will you please allow me to
say a word in our defence?" Then she explained that Prof. Fritsch never
missed a chance of casting a slur upon Frau Doktor M., not in plain
words of course, but so that we could not fail to understand it, and
that was why we acted as we did. The head answered we must certainly be
mistaken, that no member of the staff could ever speak against another
in such a way we had simply misunderstood Prof Fritsch! But we know
perfectly well how often the Nutling used to say in the Maths lesson:
"Don't you know _that_? Surely you _must_ have been taught that." The
emphasis does it!!!!! The staff meeting is to-morrow, and we were told
to do our best to make amends before the meeting. The 2 Ehrenfelds
suggested that we should write the compositions over again, of co