"How do you feel?" asked Miss Ellingwood.
"Scared," answered Sarah, trying to smile.
The members of the Board breakfasted at the Secretary's table, which was next to Miss Ellingwood's. Sarah, who could not keep her eyes away from them, felt that there was a terrible menace in the way they laughed and joked with one another. Only exceedingly hard-hearted persons could laugh that way just before they assisted in such an inquisition as their examinations were said to be. There was one tall, brown-bearded man at the head of the table, who looked about smilingly at the whole dining-room; he doubtless imposed the most difficult questions of all He made Sarah tremble.
If only the day were over and she knew finally and certainly that she had not passed! They would be glad to see her at home, whether she succeeded or failed; and she could hide her stupid head at the farm, and the twins could have her chance. She tried not to think of how wretched she would be if she could never come back. She would never see Ethel and Gertrude again, she would never be able to think of the school with pleasure. She remembered often that Laura had said that coming back to school was like coming back home. And Laura did not have as many ties as Sarah had and would have. Both William and Laura had graduated there, and eventually the twins and Albert would come too. Was she to disgrace them all?
Suddenly her sad meditations were interrupted by Miss Ellingwood.
"You must eat, Sarah. Finish your coffee at least. See, they don't look so awesome, do they?"
The brown-bearded Chairman heard, and turned to Miss Ellingwood and laughed, and then went on to speak in a round, friendly voice. He had a strangely familiar accent. He spoke a little as Sarah's father had spoken, and as Henry Ebert and Uncle Daniel and the other Pennsylvania Germans spoke. Sarah thought that he might have come from Spring Grove itself, and was not far wrong, for he had learned his Pennsylvania-German accent in another little town when he was a boy, and would never lose it. He had evidently, also, the Pennsylvania-German fondness for a joke.
"Is she afraid we'll eat her up, Miss Ellingwood?" he asked; at which a good deal of Sarah's fright evaporated.
The chapel exercises were more solemn than usual. It was a little like a service before going into battle. At the door, Sarah found Dr. Brownlee waiting to talk to her. He felt her pulse, and laughed at her frightened "Did you ever have to take such examinations?" and told her that if she didn't pass, he'd give her still more bitter medicine. Sarah almost skipped as she ran along the board-walk to the recitation building.
The seats, which were assigned in the largest class-rooms, were not given according to classes. Sarah was in the back of the great Drawing-room, a Junior boy beside her, a Senior in front of her. Clutched in her hot hand was her fountain-pen, a blotter, three newly sharpened pencils, and two erasers. If Sarah failed, it was not to be for lack of tools. Even Edward Ellis, who sat next her, was subdued, and gave her only a faint smile as she arranged them on her desk.