After that night I was a changed person. I couldn't be touched with a ten-yard pole. I became a regular bunch of fire-crackers--spurting and going off in everybody's face and eyes at the least spark. And oh, to speak out my mind, and to spit out my feelings at last, was simply glorious! It was like getting the rubber-dam off your tooth after a three hours' sitting at the dentist's. After that experience with Beatrix, there was no more Cicero translated nor French sentences corrected by Lucy Vars for a single one of those stupid-minded, rattle-brained young ladies. I made a notice on pasteboard in black ink and hung it on my door. It read: "A PUBLIC TUTOR CAN BE OBTAINED FROM MISS BROWN. DON'T APPLY HERE! LUCY CHENERY VARS." The girls thought the sign was perfectly horrid and I was glad of it. I wanted to be horrid. I revelled in it. I wanted to be horrid to everybody who had been horrid to me. Once during "Written Exercise," I wrote a whole page of Latin Composition wrong, so that little cheating snobbish Barbara Porter next to me might copy it off on her paper and pass it in. At the bottom of _my_ sheet I wrote, "I've made these mistakes on purpose. You may give me zero." Miss Brown, in a long talk in her private office, told me it was not a kind thing for me to do. But I didn't care. I had let Barbara Porter copy my Latin Comp for five weeks without a murmur, and she had never put _herself_ out to be kind to _me_. I wasn't going to be anybody's door-mat! At Thanksgiving all the girls "double up," which means that the ones who live far away spend the holiday with the ones who live near. Of course no one wanted me. Gabriella, who at times tried to be nice to me, felt conscience-stricken, I suppose, for she said to me one day when we were dressing, "It's too bad you're going to be here alone, Lucy. Don't you suppose Miss Brown would let you to come down to East Orange" (Gabriella lived in East Orange, New Jersey) "and eat Thanksgiving dinner with us?" I replied maliciously, "Why, I'm sure Miss Brown would let me spend the entire three days with you, Gabriella." Gabriella hedged then, as I knew she would. "Oh, I'm so sorry. I'm taking Grace and Barbara home with me, and there's a dance I do want to go to--and--if you--" "O Gabriella," I broke in, "don't be alarmed. I shan't burden you for one little tiny minute. I just wanted to frighten you. I wouldn't give your friends at home such a shock as the sight of me would be, for anything in the world. I shall enjoy, on the other hand, the quiet of this room after my charming room-mate has departed." That's the way I talked but I wrote home: "Gabriella wants me awfully to spend Thanksgiving with her. There is a dance and all sorts of plans, but in spite of all her urging I've refused. There's quite a bunch of us staying here" (the bunch were teachers), "and jolly spreads and sprees in store."