"I'm sorry. I have been endeavouring to attract your attention for some moments. Are you aware of the time?"
Alwynne glanced at the clock. The hands stood at an impossible hour.
"There!" she remarked penitently, "it's stopped again!"
She smiled at the class, all ears and interest.
"One of you children will just have to remind me. Helen? No, you do the chalks already. Millicent!" She singled out a dreamy child, who was taking surreptitious advantage of the interruption to pore over the pictures that had slid from the desk to the floor of the rostrum.
"Milly! Your head's a sieve too! Will you undertake to remind me? Each time I have to be reminded—in goes a penny to the mission—and each time you forget to remind me, you do the same. It'll do us both good! And if we both forget—the rest of the class must pull us up."
The little girl nodded, serious and important.
Alwynne turned to Henrietta.
"Excuse me, Miss Vigers, were you wanting to speak to me? I'm afraid we're in rather a muddle. Children—pick up those pictures: at least—Helen and Milly! Go back to your desks, the rest of you." And then, to Henrietta again, "I suppose the gong will go in a minute?"
She was being courteous, but she was implying quite clearly that she considered the interruption of her lesson unnecessary.