I got so angry I was cold, and oh, so still! I remember the awful stillness I felt within myself as I stood there. I knew what he said was just, but it hurt my pride that he would speak that way to _me_, and before the whole school! I don’t know how I ever left the blackboard and faced the others. He kept me after school and patiently showed me how to do the work. I was maddened for days after to see how, to conciliate me (who did not want to be conciliated), and perhaps to avoid the risk for me of another ignominious failure, he gave me such easy work that I could not fail to do it. At that I felt insulted. Perhaps I did study harder thereafter, but I went in and out of school for a period (perhaps only a week, but it seems ages) with an air of offended dignity that must have been absurd. I thought myself a martyr. Avoiding his glances at recitations, I refused to smile at his jests and pleasantries; showed no interest in the things about which I was wont to be enthusiastic; and was on my highest heels of offended dignity. If I had the courage to look at some of my old diaries I should doubtless find my injured feelings faithfully and minutely recorded in them; but there is a limit to one’s endurance of self-scrutiny. Some of “Prof.’s” efforts at reconciliation were obvious; and though they pleased my vanity, my obduracy would not yield. The girls pleaded with me to soften my heart; I hardened it instead--the memory of that hour at the blackboard froze me. Then, too, I was pleased to be of so much importance. I remember one of the things he tried to soften me: It was before I had studied Virgil, but always when the class in Virgil was reciting I had made little pretense of studying, listening to the translations instead. At this “Prof.” sometimes shook his head disapprovingly, motioning me to attend to my studies; and sometimes he suggested that it would be well if those not in the class in Virgil would kindly study their Cæsar; that there was abundant need of it, and so on. But I had noticed that he seemed secretly pleased at my attention when, the students having given their lame translations, he would take it up and, in his beautiful, smooth rendering, read on and on, himself carried away by the beauty of it. At such times I could not help but drink it in; it was a daily dissipation that I struggled against, but yielded to. Time and again I would pretend to be studying, but really listening; till, in spite of myself, I would have to glance up, always to find him looking at me as he translated the beautiful epic. I think he took a mischievous pleasure in this; he knew I could not resist it, and it was a tribute to his translation, as well as to the poet.