he found her dull and far behind
her classmates, how could she be expected to offer anything in the way
of higher education?

"Elizabeth," her aunt said one evening as the family were gathered
about the dining-room table, all absorbed in their lessons, except the
troublesome one, "I do wish you had some of Jean's ambition. Now,
don't you wish you could pass the entrance next summer with John and
Charles Stuart?"

Elizabeth glanced across the table at those two working decimals, with
their heads close together. Mr. MacAllister had come over to get
advice on the Long Way, and had brought his son with him.

"Oh, my, but wouldn't I love to!" she gasped.

"Then why don't you make an effort to overtake them? I am sure you
could if you applied yourself."

"But I'm only in the Junior Fourth yet, aunt, and besides I haven't got
a--something Jean told me about. What is it I haven't got, Jean?"

Jean, in company with Malcolm, was absorbed in a problem in geometry.

"I don't think you've got any common sense, Lizzie Gordon, or you
wouldn't interrupt," she said sharply.

"I mean," persisted Elizabeth, who never quite understood her smart
sister, "I mean what is it I haven't got that makes me always get the
wrong answer to sums?"

"Oh! A mathematical head, I suppose. There, Malc, I've got it. See;
the angle A.B.C. equals the angle B.C.D."

"Yes, that's what's the matter," said Elizabeth mournfully. "I haven't
a mathematical head. Miss Hillary says so, too."

"But you might make up for it in other things," said Annie, who was
knitting near. "It would be lovely to pass the entrance before you are
quite twelve, Lizzie. Jean is the only one, so far, that passed at
eleven. You really ought to try."

After this Elizabeth did try, spasmodically, for nearly a week, but
gradually fell back into her old idle habits of compiling landscapes
and dreaming dreams.

Miss Gordon questioned Miss Hillary next in regard to the difficult
case. There was an afternoon quilting-bee at Mrs. Wully Johnstone's,
to which some young people had been invited for the evening, and there
she met the young schoolmistress. As a rule, the lady of The Dale
mingled very little in these social gatherings. The country folk were
kind and neighborly, no doubt; and, living amongst them, one must
unbend a little, but she felt entirely out of her social element at a
tea-party of farmers' wives--she who had drunk tea in Edinburgh with
Lady Gordon.