for badness. Please wait
and try me and I _will_ 'improve,' as you said. Please, please! It
would break Aunt Betty's heart if she thought I wasn't good and--and
I'm so unhappy! Please forgive me."

The dark eyes, lifted so appealingly, filled with tears which their
owner bravely restrained, and the Lady Principal was touched by this
self-control. Also, under all her sternness, she was just.

"Certainly, Dorothy, your apology is sufficient. Now go at once to
Miss Hexam and do yourself credit. If you have studied music, another
person will examine you in that."

Impulsively Dorothy caught the lady's hand and kissed it; and,
fortunately, did not observe that dainty person wipe off the caress
with her handkerchief.

Then summoning her courage, the new pupil hurried to the end parlor
and entered it as she had been taught. But the "den of inquisition,"
as some of the girls had named it, proved anything but that to
Dorothy.

"The Inquisitor" was a lovely, white-haired woman, clothed in soft
white wool, and smiling so gently toward the trembling girl that all
fear instantly left her.

"So this is Dorothy Calvert, our little maid from Dixie. You'll find a
wide difference between your Southland and our Province, but I hope
you'll find the change a pleasant one. Take this chair before the
fire. You'll find it comfortable. I love these autumn days, when a
blazing log can keep us warm. It's so fragrant and cheerful and far
more romantic than a coil of steam pipe. Have a biscuit, dear?"

Miss Hexam motioned to a low wicker chair, which some girls had
declared a "chair of torture," but which suited Dorothy exactly, for
it was own mate to her own little reading chair "at home." Almost she
could have kissed it for its likeness, but was allowed no time for
foolishness. The homely little treat of the simple crackers banished
all shyness and the dreaded "exam" proved really but a social visit,
the girl not dreaming that under this friendly talk was a careful
probing of her own character and attainments. Nor did she understand
just then how greatly her answers pleased the gentle "Inquisitor."

"You want me to 'begin at the beginning'? Why, that's a long way back,
when I was a mere midget. A baby only a year and a half old. Papa and
mamma died away out west, but, of course, I didn't know that then. I
didn't know anything, I reckon, except how to make Mother Martha
trouble. My father was Aunt Betty's nephew and she didn't like his