It was a warm, languorous afternoon in October, and time hung as heavily over the heads of the pupils as the mists hung over the amethyst hollows and sunny hills of Forest Glen. It was Thursday and Miss Hillary was writing at her desk. Lottie Price, the biggest girl in school and the most curious and observing, wrote a note to Teenie Johnstone to say she bet anything the teacher was writing to her fellow. Lottie knew, because Miss Hillary often looked straight at you and didn't see you at all. That was a sure sign. In the back seat, John Gordon and the Pretender, as everyone now called Charles Stuart, were silently but busily whittling away, constructing part of a wonderful new kind of ground-hog trap. Elizabeth had filled one side of her slate with an elaborate picture of a castle on a hill, a stream, a lake, a ship, and an endless vista of town and road and church-spire stretching away into the distance. She had never heard of that school of artists that painted the classic landscapes, but she belonged to them as surely as any of the old Italian masters. She was now drawing Mrs. Jarvis in a trained gown standing on the steps of the castle, while Elizabeth Joan of Arc Jarvis Gordon, blowing a bugle, came riding down a perpendicular mountain-path on a stiff-legged steed. Rosie had just housecleaned her desk for the second time that day. She had rubbed all the ink-spots off the top and put a new paper frill around the ink-well. She was re-arranging her books once more and had them in an unsteady pile on the edge of her desk, when Elizabeth leaned over to her side, to display her finished landscape. Rosie's arm came against the toppling pile of books, and they went crashing to the floor. Miss Hillary looked up. The two culprits sat up very straight and made a frantic show of figuring on their slates. For Jessie had reported no letter that morning, and who knew what might happen? The teacher arose frowning, and Rosie made a desperate dive towards the truant books, but Miss Hillary stopped her. Then, to the amazement and relief of the two tremblers, she began to rebuke, not Rosie, but Joel Davis! Joel was a big, sleepy, fat boy who sat opposite the two little girls, and the books had bounced over towards his seat. No boy was a gentleman, Miss Hillary stated, who would allow a lady to pick up anything that had fallen. She was grieved, after all the lessons she had given in manners and morals, to find that one of her pupils could be so lacking in refinement. Joel would, therefore, please gather up Rosie Carrick's books, and put them on her desk, as a gentleman should always do for a lady.