deration. If you go scribbling down your
answers before you have read the questions, you'll be sorry, that's all;
but don't say you were not warned. Now, then, are you ready? ... We
will begin our studies to-day, young ladies, with a problem in
calculation!" She deepened her voice into such an accurate imitation of
the Arithmetical Mistress as filled her listeners with delight.
"Attention to the board!--If a room were 20 feet long, 13 feet broad, 11
feet high, and 17 feet square, how much Liberty wall-paper 27 inches
wide would be required to paper it, allowing 5 feet square for the
fireplace and seven by three for the door?"

The girls wrote down the question, not, however, without some murmurs of
protest.

"If there is one kind of sum I hate more than another, it's these horrid
old wall-papers!" declared Bertha Stacey. "I shall never be a paper-
hanger, so I don't see why I should worry my head. I don't call _this_
General Intelligence."

"I expect we shall have a taste of most subjects; but really, Tom,
really now--the room could not be 17 feet square if your other
measurements were right!" argued Irene, who knew arithmetic to be her
strong point, and was not sorry to impress the fact on her companions.
"You have made a mistake."

She expected the examiner to be discomfited, but Tom fixed her with a
glittering eye, and demanded if perchance she had _seen_ the room in
question, since she was so positive.

"No, of course not, but then-- You know quite well--"

"Well, I _have_, so perhaps you will allow me to know better. Go on,
young ladies, and the next one who dares to raise any objections gets
ten bad marks to begin her list. I must have perfect submission. Five
minutes allowed for working!"

The time proved all too short for some of the workers, for the less
expert they were the more elaborate became their calculations, until
page after page was filled with straggling figures. Thomasina made a
round of inspection, frowning over each book in turn, protesting,
scolding, marking the result with a big black cross. According to her
verdict everyone was wrong, although five girls had arrived at the same
result; and Irene obstinately disputed the decision.

"I _know_ it is right! Work it for yourself, and see. It's a simple
enough sum, and any one could tell--"

"That's apparently just what they can't do! I don't deny that you may
be correct in the broad, vulgar sense, but that is not enough for m