“Ida is away to-day,” said the teacher, “but she will be here to-morrow, I think. I am sure that you will like her.”
So her seatmate’s name was Ida! Could anything have been pleasanter? She made up her mind to write Ida of New Hampshire that very afternoon. But there wouldn’t be any afternoon; she would be in school from two until five. Never mind, there would be all the more to tell her.
Across the room was Cora, who cast at Ella a look of surprise but of genuine welcome. The two seats were diagonally opposite, and when Ella studied mensuration, a little later, she always thought of the diagonal of a rectangle as the distance from Cora’s seat to hers.
“The second class in geography,” the teacher called.
About half of the pupils in the room left their seats and took their stand at the back and around two sides of the room. This was to be Ella’s class, and to-morrow she would stand with them. To-morrow she could say, “My class.” Could anything be more delightful?
The girl at the head raised her hand. The teacher nodded, and the girl said, “I have been at the head three recitations.”
“Very well,” said the teacher, “then you may go to the foot,” and she walked down to the other end of the class.
Ella thought this was rather unfair and that she ought to have been rewarded rather than sent to the foot.
The teacher gave Ella a little yellow book of geographical questions, and the new pupil followed the recitation with the keenest interest, for this was the first time that she had ever seen a class of boys and girls of her own age.
The teacher nodded to the girl at the head of the class, and she began to recite: