was he found
it would be necessary to come even oftener to the Third Reader to ground
it in the rudiments of number.

But he did not always go when the lesson ended. Directly following its
work in the "New Eclectic Practical and Mental Primary Arithmetic," the
class was given over to mastering "Townsend's New System of Drawing."

[Illustration: "And she, like Mr. Townsend, had her system."]

While the children drew, Mr. Bryan would lean on Miss Jenny's desk,
rearrange his white necktie, and talk to her. Miss Jenny was pretty.
The class gloried in her prettiness, but it felt it would have her more
for its own if Mr. Bryan would go when the number lesson ended.

Mr. Townsend may have made much of the system he claimed was embodied in
"Book No. 1," but the class never tried his system. There is a chance
Miss Jenny had not tried it either. Drawing had never been in the public
school before, and Miss Jenny was only a Substitute.

So the class drew with no supervision and with only such verbal
direction as Miss Jenny could insert between Mr. Bryan's attentions.
Miss Jenny seemed different when Mr. Bryan was there, she seemed
helpless and nervous.

Emmy Lou felt reasonably safe when it came to drawing. She had often
copied pictures out of books, and she, like Mr. Townsend, had her
system.

On the first page of "Book No. 1" were six lines up and down, six lines
across, six slanting lines, and a circle. One was expected to copy these
in the space below. To do this Emmy Lou applied her system. She produced
a piece of tissue-paper folded away in her "Montague's New Elementary
Geography"--Emmy Lou was a saving and hoarding little soul--which she
laid over the lines and traced them with her pencil.

It was harder to do the rest. Next she laid the traced paper carefully
over the space below, and taking her slate-pencil, went laboriously over
each line with an absorbing zeal that left its mark in the soft drawing
paper. Lastly she went over each indented line with a lead-pencil,
carefully and frequently wetted in her little mouth.

Miss Jenny exclaimed when she saw it. Mr. Bryan had gone. Miss Jenny
said it was the best page in the room.

Emmy Lou could not take her book home, for drawing-books must be kept
clean and were collected and kept in the cupboard, but she told Aunt
Cordelia that her page had been the best in the room. Aunt Cordelia
could hardly believe it, saying she had never heard of a talent for
drawing in any