"I was kept in," said Eleanor rather shamefacedly.
Miss Reese laughed. "Why, my child, no you were not, at least not with the general intention that kept in means. I simply wanted to have you stay that I might go over the lessons with you. Did you think I meant it for punishment, you poor little girl?"
Eleanor looked up shyly. "I did think so," she answered. "One of the girls——" She stopped short. Her Cousin Florence had told her that it was very, very mean to tell tales about the girls, and that when she went to school she must never do it, or else the girls would dislike her.
Miss Reese noticed the sudden pause and with tact did not pursue the subject. "Now run along," she said. "To-morrow I hope you will have good recitations, and you mustn't be afraid to speak above a whisper."
True enough, the next day Eleanor was so sure of her tions and her sions that she did not miss a single word, and, moreover, she made friends with two of the nicest girls who invited her to come to their own special corner to eat luncheon with them, and in a few days she felt quite at her ease. She had known several of the girls before she entered school and before long she had entirely overcome her shyness of the others. But many of the experiences were novel, especially those which occurred in the big schoolroom where the whole school assembled to take part in the physical exercises, to listen to lectures or to view certain experiments in physics. Eleanor never forgot her first experience when the subject of electricity was before the school, and she was invited to stand upon a board set upon four tumblers, and after a contact with the electrical apparatus found her hair slowly rising on end. Seeing her startled look, one of her best friends among the larger girls, Hattie Spear, dropped on her knees and held out her arms. Eleanor threw herself into them and at the same moment Hattie gave her a kiss, then she gave a little scream and the girls all laughed, for Eleanor had given her friend an electric shock.
It took Mr. Dallas some time to explain the matter to his little daughter that evening, and she watched for the next thunderstorm with much interest, for she wanted to show off all this knowledge to Bubbles. "You know it's electricity that makes the lightning," she told her.
"Law, Miss Dimple, how you know that?" returned Bubbles.
"Papa told me. Just think, Bubbles, it is the same thing that makes the light burn in the electric lamps."
"Is dat so?" Bubbles raised her hands and appeared to be much impressed. Then after some moments given to thought, she said, "What you say de name of de man what makes de street lights, and de lightnin'? Mr. Elick Cristy? Whar he live?"
Eleanor looked at her quite puzzled, and then she laughed, but she did not offer any explanation, for at that moment her mother called her. But after that Bubbles always spoke of Mr. Elick Cristy's lights out on the street corner.