rl who had gone last to the
board, and whose flushed face and angry eyes avoided meeting Elnora's.
Being compelled to concentrate on her proposition she forgot herself.
When the professor asked that all pupils sign their work she firmly
wrote "Elnora Comstock" under her demonstration. Then she took her seat
and waited with white lips and trembling limbs, as one after another
professor called the names on the board, while their owners arose and
explained their propositions, or "flunked" if they had not found a
correct solution. She was so eager to catch their forms of expression
and prepare herself for her recitation, that she never looked from the
work on the board, until clearly and distinctly, "Elnora Comstock,"
called the professor.

The dazed girl stared at the board. One tiny curl added to the top of
the first curve of the m in her name, had transformed it from a good
old English patronymic that any girl might bear proudly, to Cornstock.
Elnora sat speechless. When and how did it happen? She could feel the
wave of smothered laughter in the air around her. A rush of anger turned
her face scarlet and her soul sick. The voice of the professor addressed
her directly.

"This proposition seems to be beautifully demonstrated, Miss Cornstalk,"
he said. "Surely, you can tell us how you did it."

That word of praise saved her. She could do good work. They might wear
their pretty clothes, have their friends and make life a greater misery
than it ever before had been for her, but not one of them should
do better work or be more womanly. That lay with her. She was tall,
straight, and handsome as she arose.

"Of course I can explain my work," she said in natural tones. "What I
can't explain is how I happened to be so stupid as to make a mistake in
writing my own name. I must have been a little nervous. Please excuse
me."

She went to the board, swept off the signature with one stroke, then
rewrote it plainly. "My name is Comstock," she said distinctly. She
returned to her seat and following the formula used by the others made
her first high school recitation.

As Elnora resumed her seat Professor Henley looked at her steadily.
"It puzzles me," he said deliberately, "how you can write as beautiful a
demonstration, and explain it as clearly as ever has been done in any
of my classes and still be so disturbed as to make a mistake in your own
name. Are you very sure you did that yourself, Miss Comstock?"

"It is impossible