ued the point. Old Tom tried to
shout her down, but Beth left her seat, and suggested that they should
go and get Miss Clifford to decide between them. Then Old Tom
subsided, and from that time she and Beth were on amicable terms.

Beth had an excellent musical memory when she went to school, but she
lost it entirely whilst she was there, and the delicacy of her touch
as well; both being destroyed, as she supposed, by the system of
practising with so many others at a time, which made it impossible for
her to feel what she was playing or put any individuality of
expression into it.

On that opening day, Beth had to go from the music-room to her first
English lesson in the sixth. All the girls sat round the long narrow
table, Miss Smallwood, the mistress, being at the end, with her back
to the window. The lesson was "Guy," a collection of questions and
answers, used also by the first-class girls, only that they were
farther on in the book. Who was William the Conqueror? When did he
arrive? What did he do on landing? and so on. Beth, at the bottom of
the class on Miss Smallwood's right, was in a good position to ask
questions herself. She could have told the whole history of William
the Conqueror in her own language after once reading it over; but the
answers to the questions had to be learnt by heart and repeated in the
exact language of the book, and in the struggle to be word-perfect
enough to keep up with the class, the significance of what she was
saying was lost upon her. It was her mother's system exactly, and Beth
was disappointed, having hoped for something different These pillules
of knowledge only exasperated her; she wanted enough to enable her to
grasp the whole situation.

"What is the use of learning these little bits by heart about William
the Conqueror and the battle of Hastings, and all that, Miss
Smallwood?" she exclaimed one day.

"It is a part of your education, Beth," Miss Smallwood answered
precisely.

"I know," Beth grumbled, "but couldn't one read about it, and get on a
little quicker? I want to know what he did when he got here."

"Why, my dear child, how can you be so stupid? You have just said he
fought the battle of Hastings."

"Yes, but what did the battle of Hastings do?" Beth persisted, making
a hard but ineffectual effort to express herself.

"Oh, now, Beth, you are silly!" Miss Smallwood rejoined impatiently,
and all the girls grinned in agreement. But it was not Beth who was
si