Mr. Artman smiled at their eagerness to be of help. "I shall just speak of the rest and sweetness of death after a life of turmoil and confusion, and shall emphasize very strongly how blessed it is that the soul goes direct to the presence of God, who knows all the secret motives hidden from human eyes." "That is downright genius," approved Doris. "Pretty slick, I call it," smiled Rosalie. "Will you be busy the whole afternoon, father?" asked Zee, returning to the original subject. "Did you want something?" He turned and looked at her, and from her sober face he caught the underlying need. "I always have time for my girls, you know. What can I do for you?" "I am sorry but I am in bad at school again." "Again," repeated Rosalie. "Don't you mean still?" "Miss Hodges wants you to come with me--that is, she says I can not come back until you do. She is going to ask you to give a sort of pledge of good behavior for me, and you can't do it, for I am sure to break over once in a while. So there you are. Don't you think Doris could teach me at home this year?" "But what in the world did you do, dear?" demanded Doris. "Well, you will be horrified, of course, Doris--but it wasn't as bad as it sounds. I did not feel well to begin with, and things went wrong from the first. Walter Dwight had some candy, and he passed it to me, and I was eating it--" "In school?" "Yes. And Miss Hodges saw me and told me to go to the window and throw it out--a very bad and unsanitary thing, throwing candy all over the play-grounds, but Miss Hodges makes us do it--and so I went to the window and looked out--and--I stood there a minute or so looking around to see what was going on in the playground, and I saw a robin sitting in the big maple, and I squinted my eye up at him, and aimed with the candy, and shot it at him." Zee looked up sadly, and then lowered her eyes again. "Everybody laughed, and Miss Hodges was not at all pleased. She said I was a little nuisance." A vague flickering smile passed from face to face around the table. "What else?" "She sent me into the science room to sit by myself half an hour and think. Professor was not there." "What did you do?" "I sat there." "Yes?" "Well, I kept on sitting there, and it was awfully monotonous. You know we have a skeleton in the physiology department now--I told you, didn't I? It was stuck up on the side of the wall on long hooks. And Professor's big amber glasses were on the desk--the girls say he wears them for style--so I put them on the skeleton. It looked awfully funny. And then Satan must have tempted me, for I did a terrible thing." A long sigh went up from the table. "The teachers' cloak-room opens from the science room." "I see it all," said Doris solemnly. "Go on, Zee. I don't get you, yet."