Counting the desks as she went along, she came at last to her own, and felt around in it for her speller.
"There you are!" she exclaimed, triumphantly, as she clutched the book. And somehow the feeling of the familiar volume took away some of the loneliness.
But her trembling fingers let her desk-cover fall with another of those resounding, reëchoing slams that no one can appreciate who has not heard them under similar circumstances.
By this time Marjorie was thoroughly frightened, though she herself could not have told what she was afraid of. Grasping the precious speller, she started, with but one idea in her mind,—to get downstairs and out of that awful building as quickly as possible.
She groped carefully for the newel-post, for going down was more dangerous than coming up, and she feared she might fall headlong.
Safely started, however, she almost ran downstairs, and reached the ground floor, only to find the front door had a spring-lock, which had fastened itself when the door banged shut.
Marjorie's heart sank within her when she realized that she was locked in the schoolhouse.
She thought of the key, but she had stupidly left that on the outside of the door.
"But anyway," she thought, "I don't believe you have to have a key on the inside. You don't to our front door at home. You only have to pull back a little brass knob."
The thought of home made a lump come into poor Marjorie's throat, and the tears came plentifully as she fumbled vainly about the lock of the door.