und it rather difficult to get on with Miss Rowe. It felt hard
to be corrected sharply for some slight slip, and to be expected to
obey every trivial order as promptly as soldiers on parade duty. The
girls resented the young teacher's imperious manner, and were sometimes
on the verge of rebellion.

"She's only about five years older than we are," declared Enid, "if so
much. I believe she's younger than my sister Adeline at home, so it's
absurd to be expected to behave as if she were Miss Lincoln. She's
really not much more than a monitress, although she's called a
mistress."

"She makes so many tiresome, silly rules," said Winnie. "Miss Harper
never thinks of telling us to sit with our arms folded, or all to open
our books at exactly the same moment, and to place our pencils on the
right-hand side of our desks. One feels like a kindergarten baby with
Miss Rowe. She ought to teach children of six."

"I wish she didn't take arithmetic, at any rate," groaned Avis. "I never
can get my sums right, especially those horrid problem ones she's so
fond of. The more she explains, the more muddled I feel, and then she
says I'm the stupidest girl in the class, and tells Miss Lincoln it's no
use sending me in for the 'Cambridge', because she's sure I shouldn't
pass."

"She's good at mathematics herself," said Winnie, "and she thinks that
anyone who isn't hasn't got brains. All my problem sums were wrong
yesterday, and I got a bad mark. I hope she won't put too many of them
in the exam. to-day."

"If she does we'll go on strike, and say we can't do the paper. I can't
possibly calculate where two people will meet each other on the road, if
they start from different points at different times. I should think it
depends how often they sit down to rest, or stop to talk to friends on
the way, or how fast they want to get to the end of their journey," said
Avis.

"There was that dreadful problem about dividing oranges among
schoolboys," continued Winnie. "If I know anything of boys, they'd have
thrown them down and scrambled for them; it would have been a far easier
way of settling it. I always feel my head ache after trying to reckon
those absurd things."

Every fortnight the class had a small examination in arithmetic, which
was almost as solemn an affair as those held at the end of the term.
Among other rules, Miss Rowe had decided that the girls, instead of
remaining at their own desks, should all change places and sit according