It was Father’s day for being present during the Regents examination. (The different members of the Board of Education took turns in coming, to see that all was fair play.) How my heart thumped when the principal opened the sealed questions sent from Albany, handed a paper to Father, and glanced rapidly over the questions himself! I knew how much he wanted me to succeed, and I wanted to for his sake as well as for my own. Soon he nodded satisfactorily. Knowing I was watching him, it was as though he said to me, “It isn’t so hard--you can do it,” and as he put the slip of printed questions on my desk he said in a low voice, “You will pass this time, Eugenia.” That cheered me; it sounded so confident; and he knew my limitations. He had drilled me so well on the ground covered by the questions that I myself felt, on setting to work, that there was a fair chance of getting through. “Prof.” came often to my desk, overlooking my paper. Once (it was not fair, I know, and he knew), he drew his pencil across an example I had worked. I did it over, somewhat conscience-stricken even at that hint, for at the close of each examination we had to listen to an oath read, stating that we had neither given nor received help from any source; then had to write these solemn words: “I do so declare,” and sign our names. Had I not been conscientious about this oath, I should long before that have cheated in arithmetic examinations. When I handed in my paper, “Prof.” said, “Don’t go home till I look it over.” Returning to my desk, I waited. The suspense while Professor Durland and Father were bent over my paper was harrowing. It was a real vivisection for me. I saw by their faces when an answer was right, and when one was wrong, and saw them estimate the number of counts the Regents would probably allow on each answer. Other students, too, were eagerly watching the result--girls I had helped write compositions, who, in turn, had worked my examples for me, were anxious for me to be rid of the troublesome study.