equired subjects, and so
brilliantly in others that the average was respectable. She would never
have been a remarkable scholar under any circumstances, perhaps, and
she was easily out-stripped in mathematics and the natural sciences by
a dozen girls, but in some inexplicable way she became, as the months
went on, the foremost figure in the school. When she had entirely
forgotten the facts which would enable her to answer a question fully
and conclusively, she commonly had some original theory to expound; it
was not always correct, but it was generally unique and sometimes
amusing. She was only fair in Latin or French grammar, but when it came
to translation, her freedom, her choice of words, and her sympathetic
understanding of the spirit of the text made her the delight of her
teachers and the despair of her rivals.

"She can be perfectly ignorant of a subject," said Miss Maxwell to Adam
Ladd, "but entirely intelligent the moment she has a clue. Most of the
other girls are full of information and as stupid as sheep."

Rebecca's gifts had not been discovered save by the few, during the
first year, when she was adjusting herself quietly to the situation.
She was distinctly one of the poorer girls; she had no fine dresses to
attract attention, no visitors, no friends in the town. She had more
study hours, and less time, therefore, for the companionship of other
girls, gladly as she would have welcomed the gayety of that side of
school life. Still, water will find its own level in some way, and by
the spring of the second year she had naturally settled into the same
sort of leadership which had been hers in the smaller community of
Riverboro. She was unanimously elected assistant editor of the Wareham
School Pilot, being the first girl to assume that enviable, though
somewhat arduous and thankless position, and when her maiden number
went to the Cobbs, uncle Jerry and aunt Sarah could hardly eat or sleep
for pride.

"She'll always get votes," said Huldah Meserve, when discussing the
election, "for whether she knows anything or not, she looks as if she
did, and whether she's capable of filling an office or not, she looks
as if she was. I only wish I was tall and dark and had the gift of
making people believe I was great things, like Rebecca Randall. There's
one thing: though the boys call her handsome, you notice they don't
trouble her with much attention."

It was a fact that Rebecca's attitude towards the opposite se