ach
pupil to stand while reciting--and upon being urged to "proceed" raised
to him a pair of violet eyes swimming in tears, and a face of abject woe.

Monsieur Sautelle was not over thirty. A dapper, exquisite little man. He
was distraught at the sight of this tearful damsel and, very naturally
attributed her distress to unpreparedness. Petty was a pretty,
inconsequential little creature born to play upon the feelings of one man
or another. It did not much matter who he happened to be so long as he
could satisfy the sentimental element in her makeup, and she was mostly
sentimentality.

"Madamoiselle I implore. Why these tears? You quite desolate me. It is no
such crushing matter that you do not know 'to love'."

"But oh, I do. I _do_," sobbed Petty.

"Then you will most kindly demonstrate that fact to the class. They
wait."

If ever instructor was taken literally Monsieur Sautelle was then and
there, for with an overpowering sob she swayed forward, flung both
arms about the dismayed man's neck and burying her face against his
immaculate collar, gurgled: "Oh, I love! I _do_ love! Thou lov-v-est!
He--He--loves----_me_!"

It was the most astonishing conjugation the startled Professor had ever
heard in all his thirty years, and he frantically strove to remove the
clinging damsel, at the same time commanding: "Madamoiselle,
Madamoiselle, make yourself tranquil! You will cease at once. Mees
Woodhull! Mees Stetson, Mees--Mees."

Now it so happened that Miss Stetson's recitation room adjoined Monsieur
Sautelle's. She heard his call and responded with winged feet, arriving
upon the scene just as Eleanor Allen, Petty's bosom friend, had sprung to
her side, and while in reality striving to untwine Petty's clinging arms
seemed also to be in the act of embracing the French teacher.

What followed is almost too painful to dwell upon, but within ten
minutes, all three actors in the little drama were arraigned before Miss
Woodhull and it was only Eleanor's clever tongue which saved the
situation. She stated very emphatically that Petty had been too ill to
study on Saturday evening; she did not feel it necessary to name the
nature of the malady. That it had been impossible for Petty to prepare
her lessons for Monday and that her act was purely the outcome of nervous
excitement and held no personal demonstration toward Professor Sautelle.

This statement the Professor was more than delighted to back up and
Petty's tears clench