"The worst of it is," she complained, "that each teacher expects you to give all your time to her particular subject. Miss Harper looks reproachful if I can't say my history, and Miss Rowe scolds if I miss in my grammar. Then Mademoiselle gives me yards of French poetry and two or three irregular verbs to learn, and Miss Lincoln asks me why my essay is so short. I could spend the whole of prep. over just one lesson, and then not know it properly in the end. Unless I take my books to bed, I can't possibly get through everything that's set me." "You should do as I do," said Enid. "I learn the beginning of the history portion almost by heart. Then I look very intelligent and attentive, and when Miss Harper asks me a question, I rattle off a long answer nearly word for word from the book, at such a tremendous rate that she can scarcely follow me, and says, 'That will do, Enid'. It makes her think I know the whole lesson, and she keeps questioning the other girls who've hesitated and stumbled." "She'll catch you some day," said Winnie. "Miss Harper's too clever to be taken in by any such tricks. She's sure to ask you a question at the end quite unexpectedly, and what will you do then?" "Trust to luck," said Enid. "She'll perhaps think I've forgotten for once. I manage my essays for Miss Lincoln rather well, too. When I can't remember any facts I make up a line or two of appropriate poetry, and put 'as the poet says'. It fills up splendidly. Miss Lincoln said once she didn't recognize all my quotations, but she always gives me a high mark!" "You can't do that kind of thing with Mademoiselle," said Avis. "No, I own it would be no use to try. When one has forty lines of French poetry to recite, one's obliged to set to work and get it into one's head. But I mean to manage better in the conversation class. My eldest sister has just come home from Paris, and she's taught me the French for 'How is your throat?' and 'Do you feel a draught?' Mademoiselle always has a cold, and wants the window shut. She'll think I'm so sympathetic, and be sure to put 'excellent' in my report." "I can manage French, and do pretty well in history and geography, but I can't learn Latin," groaned Winnie. "I didn't mind so much when we only did sentences, but now we've begun Caesar it's simply detestable. I'm an absolute goose at translation." "So am I," echoed Avis, mournfully. "I don't think Latin was ever meant for girls. My brother did Caesar two years ago, and he's in Virgil now, though he's a year younger than I am. It seems quite easy to him, but I never know which verb goes with which substantive, or whether a thing is a nominative or a genitive. I look out all the words in the dictionary, and learn their meanings, but I can't make the least sense of them until Miss Harper shows me how they fit into the sentences. Why isn't Latin arranged like English? Everything seems turned the wrong way."