bling, of course, and frequent
backslidings. Intellectual curiosity could not, she discovered, be
awakened to order; and she often caught herself napping. Thus though
she speedily became one of the most troublesome askers-why, her desire
for information was apt to exhaust itself in putting the question, and
she would forget to listen to the answer. Besides, for the life of her
she could not drum up more interest in, say, the course of the Gulf
Stream, or the formation of a plateau, than in the fact that, when
Nelly Bristow spoke, little bubbles came out of her mouth, and that she
needed to swallow twice as often as other people; or that when Miss
Hicks grew angry her voice had a way of failing, at the crucial moment,
and flattening out to nothing--just as if one struck tin after brass.
No, it was indeed difficult for Laura to invert the value of these
things.--In another direction she did better. By dint of close
attention, of pondering both the questions asked by Miss Hicks, and the
replies made by the cleverest pupils, she began to see more clearly
where true knowledge lay. It was facts that were wanted of her; facts
that were the real test of learning; facts she was expected to know.
Stories, pictures of things, would not help her an inch along the road.
Thus, it was not the least use in the world to her to have seen the
snowy top of Mount Kosciusko stand out against a dark blue evening sky,
and to know its shape to a tittlekin. On the other hand, it mattered
tremendously that this mountain was 7308 and not 7309 feet high: that
piece of information was valuable, was of genuine use to you; for it
was worth your place in the class.

Thus did Laura apply herself to reach the school ideal, thus force
herself to drive hard nails of fact into her vagrant thoughts. And with
success. For she had, it turned out, a retentive memory, and to her joy
learning by heart came easy to her--as easy as to the most brilliant
scholars in the form. From now on she gave this talent full play,
memorising even pages of the history book in her zeal; and before many
weeks had passed, in all lessons except those in arithmetic--you could
not, alas! get sums by rote--she was separated from Inez and Bertha by
the width of the class.

But neither her taste of friendship and its comforts, nor the abrupt
change for the better in her class-fortunes, could counterbalance
Laura's luckless knack of putting her foot in it. This she continued to
do, in s