under the desks. Occasionally,
when matters were really too bad to be ignored, Miss Webb would pluck
up courage to venture a remonstrance, when there would be a brief
interval of work; but within five minutes Aldred would be drawing
caricatures on the fly-leaf of her grammar, Ursula uttering a vamped-up
sneeze, and Dora signalling to Myfanwy behind Agnes's back. It was a
farce of study, and at the end of two hours nobody had really made any
headway or gained any fresh items of knowledge to use in the forthcoming
ordeal.

Miss Webb gave a sigh of relief when the clock struck and her unpleasant
task was over, and the girls popped their books untidily into their
desks, and bolted from the room with a noise and hustling at the door
such as they would not have dared to indulge in if Miss Bardsley had
been there.

Next morning at nine o'clock the examination began. All took their
seats, not at their own desks, but on a couple of forms placed in front
of the blackboard, an arrangement insisted upon by Miss Webb, and
carried out rather sulkily by the girls, who objected to be so directly
under the teacher's eye. For once, Miss Webb really managed to enforce
her authority. She separated Dora and Phoebe, the worst whisperers,
peremptorily ordered Aldred not to loll, and told Ursula, who made an
attempt at "baiting", to confine herself to answering questions, instead
of asking them.

"Anyone who does not behave properly will take a forfeit, and this
morning I shall subtract the forfeits from the general totals of the
examination," she announced, looking quite stern and determined.

Rather impressed by this unexpected burst of spirit on her part, the
girls sat up straight, and gave their minds to the subject in hand. It
was certainly very necessary for them to concentrate their attention,
for both facts and figures proved coy, and apt to refuse to come at the
call of memory. Miss Webb was methodical: she held the register in her
hand, and recorded every girl's answer immediately it was given,
entering it as right or wrong. The roll that resulted was hardly one of
honour. Nobody covered herself with credit, or made even a tolerable
show of information. Often a question would pass round the whole Form,
and the number of misses to each name began greatly to outbalance the
marks. The girls looked solemn. It was one thing to neglect Miss Webb's
lessons, but quite another affair to have their deficiencies thus
relentlessly written