With such speeches from Hilary, Cathalina kept up her courage until the hour arrived and she walked in to the class in beginning Latin, feeling much as the old martyrs must have felt when they were led to the stake. Both girls had put every spare minute on their lessons, bravely refusing all invitations to visit lake or campus, or to explore the many as yet unknown delights of Greycliff. Experienced Hilary had said, “There’s a good deal in the way you begin, whether it’s a game or a lesson.” So Cathalina puzzled over the rather uninteresting introductions of her text books. Latin promised well, since she had already studied other tongues than English, but she had a terrible time committing the rules of quantity. Algebra, as she told Hilary, looked like a Chinese puzzle. “Thank fortune, the V’s are toward the end of the alphabet!” she thought, as she was assigned a seat in the back row. “I won’t have the rest of the class staring at me when I recite.” “Miss Van Buskirk, you may explain what we mean by quantity in Latin and give the rules.” Miss Carver looked up from the roll from which she was calling upon the as yet unknown quantities of her class. Cathalina was frightened, but rose mechanically, and to her own amazement, her mind cleared, she met calmly the fierce glare of Miss Carver’s spectacles and words began to come. “Louder, please, this is not a drawing room conversation,” came the sarcastic tones as Dr. Carver’s lips curved into an unpleasant smile. Cathalina’s voice rose, and her repressed ire gave her just enough self-possession to sail through the rules without a break, after which she sat down, quivering but triumphant. “You are not through, Miss Van Buskirk. That was a good exhibition of memory, but have you any idea of the meaning of the rules?” Cathalina rose again. “I was hoping that you would explain,” she said meekly. “I understand a little.” That was a better shot than Cathalina knew, for Dr. Carver was not particularly clear or helpful in explanation, but wonderfully pompous in making demands upon the class. By the time the class was dismissed its members were in various stages of nervous prostration, as one of the girls told it, but strange to say, Cathalina’s fear was gone. When Hilary came into the suite before lunch, Cathalina was curled up on the bed working on algebra. “How did Cicero go?” she asked demurely. “My! the dear doctor slaughtered ’em right and left. She’s a new variety, as the vegetable catalogues say. There’ll be great fun. I see you’re still alive.” “Fun! I don’t like to be made angry. It keeps me from learning. I wish there were another class to somebody else! My other teachers are fine,—human!” “Isn’t it funny that Miss Randolph has anybody like that? It’s hard enough to be a lady anyhow, without an example like that in the school room!” “If the girls were disrespectful or anything there’d be some excuse. I never _heard_ anybody talk like that.” “Rap-rap-rap.”