might try
observing her fellow travelers. There might be a working-man in a corner,
with a tin-bucket beside him. Maybe he would be wearing an old coat
pinned with a safety-pin. By noting his eyes and the expression of his
mouth the girl could judge whether he was just shiftless or untidy merely
because his wife was too busy with the children to sew on buttons. She
told a lot of interesting things about the difference between the man who
holds his newspaper in one hand and the man who holds his in both. Some
temperaments always lean their heads on their hands when they are weary,
and others support their chins. A determined character sets her feet down
firmly and decidedly at every step--though of course it needn't be
thumping--while a dependent chameleon kind of a woman minces along
uncertainly. Why, sometimes just from the angle at which a person lifts
his head to listen, you can tell if he has executive ability or not.

Before the bell rang at the end of the hour, we were awfully enthusiastic
about reading character. The first thing Robbie Belle did was to stumble
over the threshold.

"Oho!" jeered Berta, "you're careless. That's as easy as alpha, beta,
gamma."

She meant a, b, c, you understand, but she prefers to say it in Greek,
being a sophomore.

"But she isn't careless," protested Lila, "she's the most careful person
I ever met. The sole of her shoe is split, and that is the reason she
stumbled."

"Why is it split?" demanded Berta in her most argumentative tone; "would
a nobly careful and painstakingly fastidious person insist upon wearing a
shoe with a split sole? No, no! Far from it. If she had stumbled because
the threshold wasn't there, or because she had forgotten it was there,
the inference would be at fault. I should impute the defect to her
mentality instead of to her character, alas! A stumble plus a split sole!
Ah, Robbie Belle, I must put you in a daily theme."

Robbie Belle looked alarmed. "Indeed, Berta, I'd rather not. I was going
to trim it off neatly this morning, but I have lent my knife to Mary
Winchester."

"Ha! lent her your knife!" declaimed Berta sternly, "another clue! This
must be investigated. Why did she borrow your knife?"

"To sharpen her pencil," answered Robbie. "I made her take it."

"Her pencil! Her pencil!" muttered Berta darkly, "why her pencil? Are
there not pens? Mayhap, 'tis not her pencil. Alas, alas! Her also I
thrust into a daily theme."

"She's snippy about