headache, and forty-five written
papers to correct. She had just heard, too, a cutting criticism of
her work made by the self-appointed faculty critic; the criticism was
cleverly worded, and had just enough truth to fly quickly and hurt her
with the head of her department. So she was not in the best of tempers.

"Yes, it's I," she said crossly. "If you had knocked these papers an
inch farther, I should have invited you to correct them. If you go about
in that abstracted way much longer, my dear, Miss Selbourne will inform
the world (on the very best authority) that you're in love."

"I? What nonsense!"

It was a ridiculous thing to say, and she flushed angrily at herself. It
was only a joke, of course.

The other woman laughed shortly.

"Dear me! I really believe you are!" she exclaimed. "The girls were
saying at breakfast that Professor Tredick was ruining himself
in violets yesterday--so it was for you!" and she went into the
lecture-room.

A chattering crowd of girls closed in behind her. One voice rose above
the rest:

"Well, I don't know what you call it, then. He skated with her all the
winter, and at the Dickinson party they sat on one sofa for an hour and
talked steadily!"

"Oh, nonsense! She skates beautifully, that's all."

"She sits on a sofa beautifully, too." A burst of laughter, and the door
closed.

The German assistant smiled satirically. It was all of a piece. At
least, the younger women were perfectly frank about it: they did not
feel themselves forced to employ sarcasm in their references; it was
not necessary for them to appear to have definitely chosen this life
in preference to any other. Four years was little to lend to such an
experiment. But the older women, who sat on those prim little platforms
year after year--a sudden curiosity possessed her to know how many of
them were really satisfied.

Could it be that they had preferred--actually preferred--But she had,
herself, three years ago. She shook her head decidedly. "Not for nine
years, not for nine!" she murmured, as she caught through the heavy door
a familiar voice raised to emphasize some French phrase.

And yet, somebody must teach them. They could not be born with foreign
idioms and historical dates and mathematical formulae in their little
heads. She herself deplored the modern tendency that sent a changing
drift of young teachers through the colleges, to learn at the expense
of the students a soon relinquished profession