ile she never forgot
anything connected with her scholars' lessons, yet she sometimes forgot
little matters about her dress.

She wore her hair in a rather unusual way, and when it was brushed back
and arranged she would pin a little round curl upon either side of her
face. This morning she had somehow forgotten to pin one of these curls
on, and as soon as the girls noticed it, they were very much amused.

If Miss Chapman had noticed it when she opened the school she would
probably have reminded Miss Ketchum of it, but she did not see it, and
none of the girls told her; so the curl was still missing when Ruby
went up with the rest of the class to the desk, to recite her grammar
lesson.

She was not quite sure that she knew it, and she had been studying so
hard up to the last minute that she had not noticed how the other girls
had been laughing behind their books and desk-covers, and had not even
looked at Miss Ketchum since school began.

Ruby was at the head of the class, and so the first question came to
her,--

"What is an adverb?"

Ruby looked up at her teacher, and was just about to answer, when her
eyes rested upon the place where the curl ought to have been. Miss
Ketchum's hair was very thin just there, and the contrast between the
round curl on one side of her head and the empty place upon the other
was so funny that before Ruby thought of what she was doing she had
laughed aloud.

Miss Ketchum had not the least idea that there was anything in her
appearance which could be amusing, and as she had often been tried by
mischievous scholars giggling or whispering, she thought that Ruby was
deliberately intending to be rude, and very naturally she was much
provoked at her. One could hardly have expected her to think anything
else, for it was not very pleasant to have one of her scholars look
straight at her and then burst out laughing.

Poor Miss Ketchum's face grew as red as Ruby's own, and she said very
sternly,--

"I am surprised at you, Ruby. I did not know that you could behave so
badly. You may carry your grammar over there in the corner, and sit
there facing the school the rest of the day. Next, what is an adverb?"

Poor Ruby was too miserable to try to explain, and she did n't like to
tell Miss Ketchum that she had left her curl off; so she took her book
and went over in the corner, feeling completely in disgrace.

After a while the door opened, and Aunt Emma looked in, to call one of
her