I was somewhat alarmed when I heard of this, for I did not know how Miss Penn-Cushing, who keeps all the girls' uncles in order, might take it. My fears were groundless, perhaps stupid, for the immediate result was an invitation to examine Mollie's form in literature at the forthcoming Christmas examination. I felt uplifted in spirit; I felt that people were beginning to understand me. I even entertained an hallucination that perhaps Mollie might now treat my intellect with respect and stop calling me "Old dear." Three inches taller I sat down to my desk and, thanking Miss Penn-Cushing for the honour paid me, I promised I would do my best, although it would be my first appearance in the _role_. I determined, however, not to allow this distinction to make me overbearing to my inferiors at our next speech-day. I would be affable to ordinary uncles, common parents and guardians of the other girls, but I would lead the conversation artfully on to other literary critics and examiners of the past. As a preparation I read up MATTHEW ARNOLD. It is not easy to be an examiner, I found. I would rather write ten leading articles than one examination-paper. It appeared that I had to set themes for essays as well as questions in literature. We never learnt literature when I was young and I didn't know you could, but I borrowed a text-book from Mollie and did my best. The result was a crushing letter from the lady principal. She said that "The Ten Points of a good Doll" seemed a preposterous subject for senior students of literature to write about, and "My Favourite Elopement in Fiction" would be outside the purview of any of her girls. She would substitute instead (with my permission), "The Debt of Literature (as well as Science) to DARWIN" and "My Favourite Piece of Epic Poetry." In fine, if I did not really mind, she would herself set all the questions and I should examine the answers. She thought that the more fructiferous course. How to mark was my chief difficulty. How many marks should one give a darling with brown eyes and a musical laugh (Mollie has brought her to tea often) who signs herself "Norah O'Brien," and winds up delightful irrelevances about DARWIN and her abhorrence of reptiles with a personal appeal to the examiner. I do not know what other examiners do in such cases. It was a beautifully worded and most respectful appeal. I decided to give her forty for Norah and forty for O'Brien. Both names have always appealed to me. This made it necessary for me to give eighty marks to her sister Kathleen, who wrote really an excellent essay on a subject we had stupidly forgotten to set. It was an excellent subject, and she has even browner eyes than Norah, but as an examiner one must be rigid and impartial.