Miss Leece always gives you the hardest
problems, too, but she can't stump little Anne."

Anne smiled wearily. It was well examinations were to begin in two days.
In her secret soul she felt she could not hold out much longer.
Moreover, Anne was worried about family affairs. She had received a
letter, that morning, which had troubled her so much that she had been
on the point, a dozen times, of bursting into tears. However, if she won
the prize--not the small one, but the _big_ one--the difficulty would be
surmounted.

Another worry had crept into her mind. She had lost the letter. A
little, wayward breeze had seized it suddenly from her limp fingers and
blown it away. She knew the letter was lurking somewhere in a corner of
the schoolroom, and she had hoped to find it when the class was
dismissed. But the missing paper was nowhere in sight when she had
searched for it during recess. Perhaps it had blown out the window, in
which case it would be brushed up by the janitress and never thought of
again. Not for worlds would Anne have had anyone read that letter.

It was during the afternoon session, in the middle of one of the
schoolroom recitations, that she caught sight of her letter again. But
after the class was dismissed and she had made haste to the corner of
the room, where she thought she had seen it under a desk, it was not
there. Disappointed and uneasy Anne put on her hat and started home.

All afternoon she worried about it. Perhaps it was because she was so
tired that she was especially sensitive about the letter being found by
some one else. If that some one else should read the contents, she felt
it would mean nothing lees than disgrace.

"You look exhausted, child," said Anne's sister Mary, who was weary
herself, having worked hard all day on a pile of spring sewing Mrs. Gray
had ordered. "Why don't you take a walk and not try to do any studying
this afternoon?"

"I think I will, sister," replied Anne; and, pinning on her hat, she
left her small cottage and started toward High School Street.

Turning mechanically into the broad avenue shaded by elm trees, she
strolled along, half-dreaming and half-waking. She was so weary she felt
she might lie down and sleep for twenty years, and like Rip Van Winkle
awaken old and gray. It was foolish of her to be so uneasy about that
letter.

Was it a premonition that compelled her to return to the schoolroom and
search again for it? Perhaps the old janitress mig