read loud and
clear: "Ben has a pen and a hen. The hen is in the pen. I see Ben and
the hen and the pen."

Miss Hillary looked pleased, and Archie went up head. "What is your
name?" she asked kindly, and he responded, "Archie Gordon." The
teacher glanced towards the culprit on the front seat. There was a
strong family resemblance amongst all the Gay Gordons, and Elizabeth
fairly swelled with restored self-respect.

The classes filed up, each in its turn, standing in a prim line with
its toes to a chalk-mark Miss Hillary had drawn on the floor. Nothing
exciting happened until Mary's class was called, and then Elizabeth
turned cold with a new fear. Just as they reached the chalk-line, only
half a dozen of them, Miss Hillary said: "As this Junior Third is so
small a class, for convenience I believe I shall put the Senior Thirds
with them. Senior Third class, rise! Forward!"

Now, Elizabeth was in the Senior Third. Strangely precocious in some
ways, she was woefully lacking in many branches of school work, and
barely kept a class ahead of Mary. The fear that Mary would overtake
her was the one thing that spurred her to spasmodic efforts. And now,
like a bolt from the blue, came the dreadful news. She and Mary were
to be in the same class!

The Seniors arose and filed reluctantly forward. Rosie poked Elizabeth
as she passed. Elizabeth understood Rosie's pokes better than other
people's plainest statement. This one said: "Isn't this a dreadful
shame? How shall we ever live it down?" And then a sudden stubborn
resolution seized Elizabeth, and she sat up straight with crimsoning
cheeks. She would not go up into Mary's class, no she wouldn't! The
teacher had said she must sit there until she had learned to be
mannerly. Well, she would then! She hadn't learned yet, and she
likely never would. And she would sit there on that front seat until
she was older than old Granny Johnstone, who spoke only Gaelic and had
no teeth, before she would go up in the same class with Mary! Mary was
a good speller, and might get ahead of her, and oh, how John and
Charles Stuart and Malcolm and Jean would talk if Mary beat her at
school! Elizabeth grew hot at the bare thought.

The big class had just arranged itself when one little girl held up her
hand. It was Katie Price, of course. Katie always told on everybody,
and was only in the Junior Third herself. "Please, teacher," said
Katie, "Lizzie Gordon's in the Senio