so that when it
was time to hand in their exercise books, they had written very little,
and that little was mostly wrong. The exercises were corrected and
returned the next day, and each girl, with the solitary exception of
Ella Johnson, found she had received a bad mark.

"It's too disgusting!" said Beatrice Wynne. "I don't believe even Miss
Rowe herself could have answered that question without looking at the
book."

"How did you manage it, Ella? You're the only one who's scraped
through," asked Avis.

"I didn't attempt it," said Ella. "I did the parsing instead."

"You mean to say you didn't do Question 1 at all?" exclaimed Kitty
Harrison.

"No, not I."

"How abominably unfair!" cried Enid. "I thought everybody had to begin
with the first question. All the rest of us took so long over it, that
we hadn't time for the parsing, and yet we got bad marks, and you, who
hadn't even tried, got a good mark. It's just like Miss Rowe's
meanness."

"It's really too bad," said Winnie. "Someone ought to go to Miss Rowe
and ask her about it."

"Yes, so they ought."

"Who will, then?"

Nobody volunteered for the disagreeable task, and Avis suggested that
Winnie herself might be suitable.

"I daren't, after the snubbing I got yesterday," said Winnie. "She
wouldn't listen to me."

"I think it would be best if we were to draw lots," said Enid.

"No, don't draw lots, it seems like gambling," said Avis. "Suppose we
count as we do for games? Stand in a circle, and I'll begin. Are you
ready?"

"The first one who gets 'out' will have to go and tell Miss Rowe what we
think, then," agreed Enid.

"'One, two, three, four, Jenny at the cottage door," began Avis.
"'Eating cherries off a plate, five, six, seven, eight. One, two, three,
out goes _she_.' Why, it's you, Winnie, after all."

"I wish it wasn't," groaned Winnie. "However, I suppose I shall have to
go. Miss Rowe's in the studio, so I'll ask her now and get it over."

"Tell her we don't think it's fair," said Enid.

"And that Ella ought to have a bad mark too," said Kitty Harrison.

"Oh, you mean thing! It's not my fault," protested the indignant Ella.

"You can say we might all have done the parsing if we'd begun it first,"
said Beatrice.

"And don't forget to say there wouldn't have been time to answer two
such long questions," said Maggie Woodhall.

"I'll do the best I can, but don't expect too much," replied Winnie.
"Stay here, all of you, till I come b