"Antoinette, did I not strictly forbid your borrowing or asking to borrow anything whatever from your schoolmates?" Antoinette, surprised at the sudden change of programme, could only stammer something about not meaning to use it in school time. "Was anything said about school or school time? Did I not positively forbid your borrowing anything from your schoolmates on any pretext whatever? Answer me!" "I didn't mean—" stammered Antoinette. "Don't tell me what you meant! Answer my question." "Yes, ma'am," Antoinette was forced to answer. "And yet I find you trying to borrow this very working-case from Calista, and that when she tells you in so many words it is not hers. I want no more words. You will take your Racine, learn the first two speeches in Alexander by heart, and recite them to me to-morrow morning before breakfast. No crying," added Miss McPherson, as Antoinette burst into a flood of tears. "I will give you another ten lines for every tear you shed." "Well, really!" said Miss Meeks. "Excuse me, my dear Eliza, but had you not better retire to your room and rest a little?" said Miss McPherson in a tone of gentle authority. "I will deal with this rebellious girl, and see that she makes you a proper apology." Miss Meeks murmured something not very intelligible, and went away rather against her will, as it seemed, and Miss McPherson drew Calista into her own special sanctum, a small, cheerful book-room opening from the school-room. "Now, Calista," said she, after she had taken her seat and motioned Calista to another one, "I am going to read this article in the paper. I want you to employ the time in thinking over your conduct this morning, and then I shall request you to tell me whether your conduct to Miss Meeks was ladylike or becoming. I think I can depend upon you to be honest both with yourself and me." Miss McPherson took up her paper and adjusted her double eye-glass, and Calista was left to her own reflections, which were not very agreeable. She was vexed with herself for taking the working-case at all, for bringing it to school, and for having lost her temper, at Antoinette for getting her into the scrape, and at Miss Meeks for her injustice and partiality. "I need not have spoken so to her, and above all I need not have mimicked her; but it certainly is very vexatious to have some one always ready to see the wrong side of you, and make the worst of everything you say and do. Who would have thought of her getting in such a rage over such a trifle! Her very lips were pale. I thought she was going to faint. Oh dear, I wish I could ever have any peace or comfort in all my life!" thought poor Calista, and the tears rose to her eyes. "I should wish I were dead if it were not wicked, and if I were sure of being better off!"