"Yes, Miss Cullam," said Ruth, demurely.
"You see, my dear," said Miss Cullam, who had a whimsical way about her that Ruth had begun to delight in, "after all, we college instructors are all necessarily of the race of watch dogs."
"Oh, Miss Cullam!"
"Our girls are put upon their honor and are in the main worthy of our confidence. But we have experiences that show us how frail human virtue is.
"For instance, there are examinations. A most trying necessity are examinations. They come mainly toward the close of the college year, and a few of our girls are not prepared to pass.
"Last year I felt that some of my freshmen and sophomores could not possibly comply with the mathematical requirements. When I received from the printers my copies of the questions to be proposed to the classes I really felt that a few of my girls were going to have a hard time," and she smiled again, yet there was still trouble in her eyes.
"I chanced to be in the library when I received the papers. You have not seen our library yet, have you, Miss Fielding?"
"No, Miss Cullam. You know, Helen and I arrived only this afternoon at Ardmore."
"That is so. Well, the library is a very beautifully furnished building. It was a gift from certain alumni. I was alone in the reception-room when I examined the papers, and being called suddenly to a duty and not wishing to take the papers with me, I rolled them up and thrust them into a vase standing upon the table. When I returned in a few minutes, still hurried by a task before me, I found that I had thrust the papers so far into the small-mouthed vase that I could not reach them. Quite a ridiculous situation, was it not?
"But now the plot thickens," went on the teacher, with a sigh. "The papers were safe enough there, of course. The vase was a very beautiful and valuable silver one, and had its place of honor on that table. I could not stop to retrieve the question papers with a pair of tongs—as I might, had I not been hurried. When I returned armed with the tongs in the morning——"