ve called "serious trouble in the
internal department." She was ravenously hungry; and yet she had eaten a
good lunch and did not like to demand of Mrs. MacCall that bite between
meals which was so abhorred by the Scotchwoman.

"You have no more right to eat 'twixt one meal and t'other by day than
you have to demand a loonch in the middle of the night," was often the
good woman's observation when she was asked for a mid-afternoon lunch.

Ruth was easier. She had not been brought up in the rigid, repressive
school that had surrounded Mrs. MacCall's childhood. As for Linda, the
Finnish girl, if she had her way she would be "stuffing" (to quote Mrs.
MacCall) the children all the time.

"You sh'd train your stomach to be your clock, child," Mrs. MacCall
declared on this occasion, after Dot had finally mustered up her courage
to ask for the lunch.

"I try to, Mrs. Mac," said the smallest Corner House girl
apologetically. "But sometimes my stomach's fast."

That started the ball rolling that evening, and the dinner table proved
to be a hilarious place. But Ruth was very quiet and her countenance
carried a serious cast that might have been noticed had the others not
all been so gay and excited. The first day of the term is always an
exciting time. Everything about the school--even old things--seems
strange.

Dot had of course learned to write as well as to read; and indeed she
wrote a very plain and readable hand. Even Mrs. MacCall could see it
"without her specs."

"I do abominate these folks whose handwriting is so fine that I have to
run to get my glasses to know whether it's an invitation to tea or to
tell me some bad news," the housekeeper declared, in discussing Dot's
improved writing.

The little girl was passing around a paper on which she had copied a
sentence that her teacher had written on the blackboard just before
closing hour that day. With an idea of testing the children's knowledge
of English, the teacher had written the line and told her class to think
it over and, in the morning, bring her the sentence rewritten in
different words, but retaining the original meaning.

It was the old proverb: "A wink is as good as a nod to a blind horse."

"Of course, I know what it _means_," Dot said. "If a horse is blind he
wouldn't see you nodding or winking. And winking isn't polite,
anyway--Ruth says it isn't."

"Correct, Dottums," Agnes agreed. "It is very bad and bold to
wink--especially at the boys."

"