"Seventeen enrolled—but only seven or eight who attend," replied Hope briefly.
"Mercy, I thought you must have at least fifty, from all I saw back there!" gasped Mrs. Van Rensselaer. "Well, I shouldn't think it would be much trouble to prepare lessons for that amount."
"That many," corrected Hope. "We don't measure them by the pound."
"No, we size them up by the cord," laughed Sydney; "but we don't handle 'em, because they're like that much dynamite."
"Dangerous pieces of humanity," said Livingston, smiling.
"Hope can handle them all right," declared Mrs. Van Rensselaer. "She can handle anyone, for that matter. She's got more tact and diplomacy than any politician. Trust her to manage seven or eight children! Why, if she can't manage a person any other way, she'll actually bully him. She can make you believe black is white every time."
"Fräulein is so goot!" murmured Louisa, in rapture.
"Thank you," replied Hope gratefully. "You see Louisa knows me last, Clarice, and her remark should show you that I have changed for the better."
"I always told you there was chance for improvements, didn't I, Hopie?" laughed Sydney.
"Yes, you have said something about there being room for improvement, but I always supposed you judged me to be a hopeless case. I'm glad though you think there's a chance! I always did want to improve!" As she spoke she pushed back the box upon which she had been sitting, turning it over to make it lower, and seated herself near the corner of the tent, where she was shaded from the direct rays of the lantern's light.