rite a paper," said
Henrietta. "I just wrote a few notes down to amuse myself."

"Oh, I'm so sorry, dear. Well, if you should think of doing the paper,
you must read this article, it's such a help, it really puts all one
wants to say."

"Oh no, I shouldn't care to read that at all."

"Oh do. Let me put it here, and then you can look at it."

"No, thank you."

Miss Gurney went out, and Henrietta sat at her paper for two hours and a
half. It was so bad, so unintelligible, that she actually cried over it,
and when she heard Miss Gurney's step, she carried it off to her bedroom
and locked the door. Miss Gurney was after her in an instant.

"How are you getting on with your paper, dear? Can I be of any help?"

She did finish it at last, and gave it to Mr. Amery. She knew it was
bad, but she was too ignorant to know quite how bad. Professor Amery,
with the extreme courtesy of elderly gentlemen, wrote: "I think there
are one or two points which I have not made quite clear. Would you care
to talk them over with me after the class?" But this offer was so
alarming that Henrietta "cut" her lectures for two weeks.

There would have been more chance for her, if only she could have become
in the least interested. She tried the French Revolution next term for
a change, but liked it no better than Aristotle. Intellectual life was
dead and buried in her long ago. What would have really suited her best
in the present circumstances would have been shorthand and type-writing,
but at that time no such occupation was open to her.

She would perhaps have jogged on indefinitely at the lectures, if Miss
Gurney, whose great interest was novelty and change, and whose abstracts
of learned books had lately become much less voluminous, had not jumped
at a suggestion to take a delicate niece abroad, and proposed that
Henrietta should come too. So Henrietta consented, and with little
regret they gave up the lodgings, and said good-bye to learning.

CHAPTER IX

Henrietta paid her father a visit before they started abroad. The
promise of the first days was amply fulfilled; the whole house was
happy, and Henrietta was touched by the warmth of her welcome. After the
squalor of lodgings home was pleasant, and her father's invitation was
cordial: "Henrietta, why don't you stay with us? Mildred," with a fond
look at his wife, "never will allow your room to be used; it's always
ready waiting for you."

It was a temptation to Henrietta, b