"She'll be getting into serious trouble some day," she thought. "I wish she would behave better in Miss Rowe's classes. Things can't always go on like this, and if Miss Rowe were to tell her to report herself in the library, I don't believe even Enid would like to face Miss Lincoln and find her really angry. I know I shouldn't."
It seemed no use for Patty to try remonstrances. Enid only laughed, and would not listen to her.
"Patty, you're a dear!" she declared. "I love you the best of any girl I know, but even you can't persuade me to like Miss Rowe. It's no use. We're flint and steel, or frost and fire; or oil and water, or anything else you can name that oughtn't to go together, and won't mix. The very tone of her voice annoys me."
"Why should it?"
"It's so prim. The way she pokes out her chin and says 'Enid!' is most disagreeable. It always makes me want to be naughty. Yes, it does; don't shake your head. I've told you a hundred times I'm not good like you, and I simply can't be. I'm like a bottle of soda-water with the cork popped, and I have to fizz over sometimes."
It was unfortunate that Enid should have taken such a dislike to her teacher, for she kept up a state of ill-feeling among the girls which otherwise would probably have died away. Absurd trifles were magnified and made much of, and ridiculous grievances were nursed and cherished. One day Miss Rowe set the upper division a grammar exercise consisting of two questions. The first was long and very difficult; it was on the origin of the English language, and required a certain knowledge of various Anglo-Saxon roots, a list of words derived from ancient British, and some account of the Norman-French period. The second and shorter question was simply a sentence to be parsed. No one in the class had a good memory for derivations. Fourteen out of the fifteen members spent the half-hour racking their brains and biting the ends of their pens in vain endeavours to complete their answers to Question 1, so that when it was time to hand in their exercise books, they had written very little, and that little was mostly wrong. The exercises were corrected and returned the next day, and each girl, with the solitary exception of Ella Johnson, found she had received a bad mark.
"It's too disgusting!" said Beatrice Wynne. "I don't believe even Miss Rowe herself could have answered that question without looking at the book."
"How did you manage it, Ella? You're the only one who's scraped through," asked Avis.
"I didn't attempt it," said Ella. "I did the parsing instead."
"You mean to say you didn't do Question 1 at all?" exclaimed Kitty Harrison.