look at her from under his eyebrows, than that her mother would
say, "Why, _Marjorie!_" Her mother never scolded, and sometimes she
almost wished she would. It would be a relief if somebody would scold her
tonight; she would stick a pin into herself if it would do any good.

_Her_ photograph would not be in the group next time. She looked across
at the framed photograph on the wall; six girls in the group and herself
the youngest--the reward for perfect recitations and perfect deportment
for one year. Her father was so proud of it that he had ordered a copied
picture for himself, and, with a black walnut frame, it was hanging in
the sitting-room at home. The resentment against herself was tugging away
at her heart and drawing miserable lines on her brow and lips--on her
sweet brow and happy lips.

It was a bare, ugly country schoolroom, anyway, with the stained floor,
the windows with two broken panes, and the unpainted desks with
innumerable scars made by the boys' jack-knives, and Mr. Holmes was
unreasonable, anyway, to give her such a hard punishment, and she didn't
care if she had been kept in, anyway!

In that "anyway" she found vent for all her crossness. Sometimes she
said, "I don't care," but when she said, "I don't care, _anyway_!"
then everybody knew that Marjorie West was dreadful.

"I'm _through_," she thought triumphantly, "and I didn't cheat, and I
wasn't mean, and nobody has helped me."

Yes, somebody had helped her. She was sorry that she forgot to think that
God had helped her. Perhaps people always did get through! If they didn't
help themselves along by doing wrong and--God helped them. The sunshine
rippled over her face again and she counted the words on her slate for
the second time to assure herself that there could be no possible
mistake. Slowly she counted seven hundred, then with a sudden impulse
seized her pencil and wrote each of the seven words five times more to be
"_sure_ they were all right."

Josie Grey called her "horridly conscientious," and even Rie Blauvelt
wished that she would not think it wicked to "tell" in the class, and to
whisper about something else when they had permission to whisper about
the lessons.

By this time you have learned that my little Marjorie was strong and
sweet. I wish you might have seen her that afternoon as she crouched over
the wooden desk, snuggled down in the coarse, plaid shawl, her elbows
resting on the hard desk, her chin dropped in her two plu