flash out, and not only upset the gravity of the class, but
sometimes even cause Miss Farrar to have a difficulty in keeping her
countenance.

She was a slightly disturbing element in the Form. When it was her turn
to answer there would be an air of general expectancy in the room; the
didactic language of the textbooks was often paraphrased by her lips
into something of a more racy description, and even her mistakes were
as delicious as her quaint methods of stating facts. Miss Farrar
occasionally suspected her of intentionally giving wrong replies, for
the sheer satisfaction of causing amusement; but it was difficult to
prove the charge, since, however ludicrous her statements might be, she
never under any circumstances laughed at them herself, and all the
while her large, grey Irish eyes would be fixed upon her teacher with
the innocence of a baby.

Thanks to Janie Henderson's assiduity, Honor conformed tolerably well
to the ordinary rules. Mindful of Miss Maitland's charge, Janie
considered herself responsible for Honor, and was continually ready to
jog her memory about what exercises must be written, what lessons
learnt, and what books brought to class, all of which were details that
her friend would not have troubled about on her own account; but in
spite of her exertions the poor girl often saw her protegee in trouble.

"The worst of it is," she admitted to herself, "that one never knows
what to expect. Honor is a darling, but she does such peculiar and
extraordinary things, she almost takes one's breath away. If I could be
prepared for them beforehand, and warn her, it might be of some use;
but I can't, so she's bound to get into scrapes."

Undoubtedly, very unprecedented happenings took place in the Lower
Third--happenings such as had never occurred before Honor's advent. Who
but she would have thought of tilting two books together and emptying
the inkpot on the top of them, when asked to describe a watershed? Yet
she looked genuinely astonished when the vials of Miss Farrar's wrath
descended upon her, and said almost reproachfully that she was only
trying to give a practical illustration.

One day she smuggled Pete, the kitten from St. Chad's, into class, and
shut him inside her desk, where he settled down quite comfortably, and
slept peacefully through the French lesson. But in the middle of
algebra, Honor, who hated mathematics, managed to give him a
surreptitious pinch, with the result that a long-drawn