“Miss Green,” she said, “I think you are very unjust. I felt sorry for you when you said your vocation had been thrust upon you. That is why I said I thought you would be happier if you changed. I don’t know why Imogene laughed; but I think you are suspicious to think of a conspiracy. I don’t know what you mean.” “Do not add impertinence to the list of your misdemeanors, Virginia.” Miss Green was becoming angry—calmly so, perhaps, but angry. “I do not mean to be impertinent, Miss Green. I—I—have been trying hard to like you”—her voice quavered and broke—“but I think you are unfair to me.” Miss Green’s eyes and mouth opened simultaneously. She had never dreamed of such frankness in a pupil brought before her for a reprimand! She fidgeted uncomfortably in her chair. Perhaps, this interview had been long enough. It did not seem fruitful. “Do not try to like me, I beg of you, Virginia. You seem to find it hard work. But I tell you, as I tell all my pupils, the day will come when you will be deeply grateful to me for my correction.” In her tumultuous heart Virginia doubted the arrival of that day of gratitude. She waited for Miss Green to finish. “We will grant, perhaps, that you may not have meant rudeness. I will give you the benefit of the doubt. But we must admit that you were hardly decorous in your remarks. Have you anything to say?” Suddenly into Virginia’s’ mind there came an idea—so quickly that she smiled a little, greatly to Miss Green’s discomfiture. “Yes, please,” she answered in reply to the question asked her. “I can’t seem to think. What is the noun for ‘decorous’?” Miss Green’s eyes and mouth again widened, this time in greater astonishment. Evidently, this interview was not producing the desired change of heart. It would far better be ended. She cleared her throat again. “The noun for ‘decorous’ is ‘decorum.’ I am sorry my words have had no greater effect. Goodnight.” “Of course, it’s decorum” said Virginia, as she went toward the door. “How foolish of me to forget! You’ve really given me a brand new idea, Miss Green. Good-night.” And she went upstairs, leaving behind her a puzzled and almost angry woman, whose knowledge of having done her duty was in some way quite eclipsed by a strange, yet indisputable, sense of having been badly beaten. Study hour was in session when Virginia hurried through the hall toward her room; but two doors noiselessly opened as she passed, and four hands extended notes, which she took wonderingly. The door opposite her own did not open. In her room, Priscilla, instead of studying, was writing furiously in her “Thought Book,” which, apparently unread, had been sent two weeks before. As Virginia came in, she jumped up from the desk, and threw her arms around her.