"What under the canopy I have been doing since, I don't know. But if I've got down to two thousand dollars capital, I must have been having an awfully good time spending money; for I know I had a poke full of gold dust when I struck the coast and went over to Sitka." "More likely he was robbed," said Chet. "He looks about as much like a miner as Pa Belding," Laura declared. There was too much going on just then, however, for Mother Wit to try out the thought that had come to her mind regarding this man. All these interests had to be sidetracked for school and lessons. And just at this time recitations seemed to be particularly hard. With rehearsals for the play, and all, mere knowledge was very difficult to acquire. "I know I'm not half prepared in physics," wailed Nellie Agnew, as she and other juniors trooped into school one day, two weeks before Christmas. "And I," said Jess Morse, "know about as much regarding this political economy as I do about sweeping up the Milky Way with a star brush." "How poetic!" cried Laura, laughing. "I wonder if we all are as well prepared?" "They expect too much of us," declared Dora Lockwood. "Much too much!" echoed her sister. "I wonder," said Laura, "if we don't expect too much of the teachers?" In the physics recitation Nellie Agnew, as she prophesied, came to grief. Miss Carrington seemed to have an uncanny knowledge of whom to call on at such times. She seemed aware that Nellie had not prepared her lesson properly. It might be that the wary teacher read her pupils' faces. Nellie's was so woebegone that it was scarcely possible to overlook the fact that she probably felt her shortcomings in the task at hand. Miss Carrington called on the doctor's daughter almost the first one in physics. To say "unprepared!" to Miss Carrington was to bring upon one's head the shattered vials of her wrath. There was no excuse for not trying, that strict instructor considered. So Nellie tried. She stumbled along in her first answer "like a blind man in a blind alley," so Jess Morse declared. It was pitiful, and all the class sympathized. The gentle Nellie was led to make the most ridiculous statements by the silky-voiced teacher. "And you are a physician's daughter!" Miss Carrington burst out at last. "For shame!" "If I were Nell," said Dora Lockwood to her twin, "I'd cut pills altogether after this. I'd rather take math with Mr. Sharp himself." Miss Grace G. Carrington was never content to let a pupil fail and sit down. She nagged and browbeat poor Nellie until the girl lost her nerve and began to cry. By that time the other girls were all angry and upset, and that physics recitation was bound to go badly. When Jess was called on she rose with blazing cheeks and angry eyes to face their tormentor. Miss Carrington saw antagonism writ large upon Jess Morse's face. "I presume, Miss Morse, you think I cannot puzzle you?" said Miss Carrington in her very nastiest way.