Elizabeth? Not a blunder in French verbs or geography—very tidy copy. French reading good; English equally so, only it ended in a pout, because there was not time for her to go on to see what became of Carthage; and she was a most intolerable time in learning her poetry out of the book of Readings, or rather she much preferred reading the verses in other parts of the book to getting perfect in her lesson, and then being obliged to turn her mind to arithmetic. Miss Fosbrook called her three times; and at last she turned round peevishly at being interrupted in the middle of the “Friar of Orders Gray,” and repeated her twenty lines of Cowper’s “Winter’s Walk” in a doleful whine, though without a blunder.
It was one of the horrible novelties that Miss Fosbrook was bringing in, that she expected people to understand their sums as well as work them. She gave much shorter ones, to be sure, than Mamma, who did sometimes set a long multiplication sum of such a huge size, that it looked as if it were meant to keep the victim out of the way; but who would not prefer casting up any length of figures, to being required to explain the meaning of “carrying”?
Really, if it had not been for the pig, that shocking question might have led to a mutiny in the school-room. When it was bad enough to do the thing, how could anyone ask what was meant by the operation, and why it was performed?
What did Bessie do when her sum was being overlooked? Miss Fosbrook read on: “4 from 8, 4; 7 from 1—how’s this, Bessie? 7 from 10 are—”
“3, and 1 are 4,” dolorously, as her 3 was changed.
“Now then, what next?”
“Carry one.”
“What did I tell you was meant by carry one?”
“The tens,” said Bessie, not in the least thinking “the tens” had anything to do with the matter, but only that she had heard something about them, and could thus get rid of the subject.
“Now, Bessie, what tens can you possibly mean? Think a little.”