with her auntie
here.

Nellie won, and we sat down on the bank and I began to ask her about
her school-life.

"I dinna like the school, and I wish I was left," she said.

"Tell me why you dislike it, Nellie."

"If ye speak ye get the strap."

"What!" I cried, "are you _never_ allowed to speak?"

"Only at playtime," she replied. "And ye never get less than six
scuds."

And it was only the other day that a lady wrote me saying that when I
preach against Prussianism in schools I am merely resuscitating a dead
bogey for the purpose of knocking it down.

I get quite a lot of information of schools from children. I remember
when I was in Lyme Regis last Easter I went out sketching one day. As
I passed a village school a troupe of happy children came out. Joy lit
up their faces.

"The ideal school!" I cried, and stopped to speak to them.

"Tell me, children, tell me why you have laughter in your eyes," I
said, "tell me of your happy school."

The oldest boy grinned.

"Master's gone off for the day to a funeral," he said.

I walked on deep in thought.

Nellie dislikes school. What a tragedy. She is a dear sweet child
with kind eyes and a bonny smile. She spoke frankly to me at first but
when I told her that I was a teacher she looked at me with fear and (I
smiled at this) dropped her Dundee dialect and answered me in School
English. I had to throw plantain heads at her for a full five minutes
before the look of fear left her eyes and her dialect returned.

"I dinna believe ye _are_ a teacher," she said to-night.

"Why not?"

"Ye're no like ane," she said hesitatingly. "Ye're ower--ower daft."

"But why shouldn't a teacher be daft?" I asked.

"They shud be respectable," she said, "or the children winna respect
them."

I looked alarmed.

"What!" I cried, "don't you respect me?"

She laughed gaily.

"No!" she cried, then she added seriously: "But I'd like to be at your
schule."

She returns to Dundee to-morrow, to a class of fifty, where silence
reigns. Poor Nellie! What worries me is that when Nellie's teacher
reads this book she will most probably agree with Nellie's remark that
I'm "daft". But she won't mean what Nellie meant.

A telegraph girl approached.

"Machines are waiting.--Jenkins."

Nellie looked anxious.

"That's twa telegrams ye've got the day," she said. "Is onybody deid?"

I looked at the words on the telegraph form.

"No, Nellie, unfortunately no!" I said slo