r instance, which of you have finished with your
arithmetic, and which--"

"What do you mean?" begged Clematis, somewhat tearful.

"Where are you in your arithmetic?

"Nowhere, ma'am."

"Do you mean you have never learned any?" Mary Carmichael shuddered as she
icily put the question.

"Yes, ma'am."

"Is that the case with all of you?"

Emphatic nods left no room for doubt.

"Then we'll leave that for the present. If you will tell me, Clematis,
what kind of work you have been doing in your history and English, we will
get to work on those to-day. What books have you been using?"

Not unnaturally, Clematis, who was emotional and easily impressed, began
to feel as though she were a criminal. She sobbed in a helpless, feminine
way. Ben spoke up, fearsomely, from the top of the class.

"We 'ain't got no books," said he, in grim rebuke, as though to put an end
to a profitless discussion.

"Do you wish me to understand," quavered Mary, "that you have had no
studies--that you--can't read?--that you--don't know--anything?"

"That's it," said Ben, with the nearest approach to cheerfulness he had
yet manifested.

Meanwhile there lay on the teacher's "desk" copies of Clodd's _Childhood
of the World_, two of that excellent series of _History Primers_, and _The
Young Geologist_, all carefully selected, in the fulness of Mary's
ignorance, for the little pupils of her imagination. She had brought no
primer, as Mrs. Yellett's letter had distinctly said that the youngest
child was ten and that all were comparatively advanced in their studies.
More than ever Mary longed to penetrate the mystery of that Irish linen
decoy, for without doubt it was to be her melancholy fate to conduct this
giant band through the alphabet!

Accordingly she wrote out the letters of the alphabet with large
simplicity and a sublime renunciation of flourish. The class received it
tepidly. Mary grew eloquent over its unswerving verities. The class
remained lukewarm. The difference between a and b was a matter of
indifference to the house of Yellett. They regarded their teacher's
strenuous efforts to furnish a key to the acquirement of the alphabet with
the amused superiority of "grown-ups" watching infant antics with pencil
and paper. Meanwhile her fear of the class increased in proportion as her
ability to hold its attention diminished. The backbone of the school was
plainly wilting. The little scholars, armed to the teeth, no longer sat up
stra