words Laura scented a reference to Mother's small income, and grew as
red as fire.

In the lowest class in the College she sat bottom, for a week or more:
what she did know, she knew in such an awkward form that she might as
well have known nothing. And after a few efforts to better her
condition she grew cautious, and hesitated discreetly before returning
one of those ingenuous answers which, in the beginning, had made her
the merry-andrew of the class. She could for instance, read a French
story-book without skipping very many words; but she had never heard a
syllable of the language spoken, and her first attempts at
pronunciation caused even Miss Zielinski to sit back in her chair and
laugh till the tears ran down her face. History Laura knew in a vague,
pictorial way: she and Pin had enacted many a striking scene in the
garden--such as "Not Angles but Angels," or, did the pump-drain
overflow, Canute and his silly courtiers--and she also had
out-of-the-way scraps of information about the characters of some of
the monarchs, or, as the governess had complained, about the state of
London at a certain period; but she had never troubled her head with
dates. Now they rose before her, a hard, dry, black line from 1066 on,
accompanied, not only by the kings who were the cause of them, but by
dull laws, and their duller repeals. Her lessons in English alone gave
her a mild pleasure; she enjoyed taking a sentence to pieces to see how
it was made. She was fond of words, too, for their own sake, and once,
when Miss Snodgrass had occasion to use the term "eleemosynary", Laura
was so enchanted by it that she sought to share her enthusiasm with her
neighbour. This girl, a fat little Jewess, went crimson, from trying to
stifle her laughter.

"What IS the matter with you girls down there?" cried Miss Snodgrass.
"Carrie Isaacs, what are you laughing like that for?"

"It's Laura Rambotham, Miss Snodgrass. She's so funny," spluttered the
girl.

"What are you doing, Laura?"

Laura did not answer. The girl spoke for her.

"She said--hee, hee!--she said it was blue."

"Blue? What's blue?" snapped Miss Snodgrass.

"That word. She said it was so beautiful ... and that it was blue."

"I didn't. Grey-blue, I said," murmured Laura her cheeks aflame.

The class rocked; even Miss Snodgrass herself had to join in the laugh
while she hushed and reproved. And sometimes after this, when a
particularly long or odd word occurred in the le