t to see if you know where Stralsund is, that's all."

"Tell us where it is, Letty," said Anna coaxingly, kneeling down in front
of the chair and opening the atlas. "Let us find the map of Germany and
look for it. Why, you did Germany for your last exam.--you must have it
all at your fingers' ends."

"It didn't stay there, then," said Letty moodily; but she went over to
Anna, who was always kind to her, and began to turn over the
well-thumbed pages.

Oh, what recollections lurked in those dirty corners! Surely it is hard
on a person of fourteen, who is as fond of enjoying herself as anybody
else, to be made to wrestle with maps upstairs in a dreary room, when
the sun is shining, and the voices of the children passing come up
joyously to the prison windows, and all the world is out of doors! Letty
thought so, and Miss Leech thought it hard on a person of thirty, and
each tried to console the other, but neither knew how, for their case
seemed very hopeless. Did not unending vistas of classes and lectures
stretch away before and behind them, dotted at intervals, oh, so
frequent! with the black spots of examinations? Was not the pavement of
Gower Street, and Kensington Square, and of all those districts where
girls can be lectured into wisdom, quite worn by their patient feet? And
then the accomplishments! Oh, what a life it was! A man came twice a
week and insisted on teaching her to fiddle; a highly nervous man, who
jerked her elbow and rapped her knuckles with his bow whenever she
played out of tune, which was all the time, and made bitter remarks of a
killingly sarcastic nature to Miss Leech when she stumbled over the
accompaniments. On Wednesdays there was a dancing class, where a pinched
young lady played the piano with the energy of despair, and a hot and
agile master with unduly turned-out toes taught the girls the Lancers,
earning his bread in the sweat of his brow. He also was sarcastic, but
he clothed his sarcasms in the garb of kindly fun, laughing gently at
them himself, and expecting his pupils to laugh too; which they did
uneasily, for the fun was of a personal nature, evoked by the clumsiness
or stupidity of one or other of them, and none knew when her own turn
might not come. The lesson ended with what he called the March of Grace
round the room, each girl by herself, no music to drown the noise her
shoes made on the bare boards, the others looking on, and the master
making comments. This march was terrib