o clumsy in
her movements that I almost tremble to see her enter the room."

Poor Bridget! Her usual manner of entering a room was with her head
eagerly thrust forward, and her long arms swinging; that was when she
was quite comfortable and unselfconscious, but all this must be changed
now, and to achieve this Miss Tasker devised an ingenious method of
torture, which was practised every morning. It was this. Lessons began
at ten o'clock, at which time the children were expected to assemble in
the school-room, but now, instead of running in any how, they had to go
through the following scene.

Miss Tasker sat at her desk ready to receive each pupil with a gracious
smile and bow; then one by one they entered with a solemn bow or curtsy
and said, "Good morning, Miss Tasker."

"I call it humbug," remarked the outspoken Bobbie, "as if we hadn't seen
her once already at breakfast-time."

How Bridget hated this ordeal!

To know that Miss Tasker was waiting there ready to fix a keen grey eye
on her deficiencies, and that she would probably say when the curtsy was
done:

"Once again, Bridget, and remember to _round_ the elbows."

How to round your elbows when they naturally stuck out like
knitting-pins, Bridget could not conceive, and I am afraid that, pushed
to desperation, she soon left off even trying, and so became more
awkward than ever.

But the ceremony once over, and lessons begun, Miss Tasker had no cause
for complaint, for Bridget was a ready and ambitious pupil. She had a
good memory, and being an imaginative child, it was a special pleasure
to her to learn poetry, in repeating which she would quite forget
herself and her awkwardness and pour forth page after page without a
single mistake.

At such times, Miss Tasker's chill remarks of "Your shoulders,
Bridget"--"Don't poke, Bridget," generally fell on unheeding ears, but
there was one occasion on which Bridget did feel them to be especially
trying and out of place.

She had been learning one of the "Lays of Ancient Rome," and was now
repeating it all through. In proud consciousness of not having missed
one word, and in full enjoyment of the swing of the poetry, she stood
with her head thrust forward and her chin in the air:

"So he spake, and speaking sheathed
His good sword by his side,
And with his armour on his back
Plunged headlong in the tide!
No sound of--"

"My _dear_ Bridget, draw in your chin," said the cold voice, and poor