“Desirability” was the next word, and was given to one of the largest, although by no means the most brilliant, girls in the school.
She hesitated a moment, and then said: “If desire is spelled d-e-s-i-r-e, I suppose the other end of it will be a-b-i-l-i-t-y.”
“A quality in which you are lacking,” was the instantaneous retort. “If you desired it more, your ability would be greater.”
When desirability had been successfully dealt with, ten or more words were happily disposed of, then came another poser in the form of ‘physiognomical,’ and the groans which greeted it foretold its fate.
“What does it mean, anyway, Miss Preston?” asked one girl.
“Well, there is more than one way of telling you its meaning, but I believe in simple explanations, so I will say, that when you all rush off to the cloak-room at one o’clock that it would be well for you to observe carefully the expression upon the other girl’s face when you throw down her hat and coat in your eagerness to get your own first. You will then, doubtless, have an excellent opportunity to form a correct idea of the meaning of physiognomical. Then you may come and tell me whether you consider her character an angelic or impish one.”
How well Miss Preston was aware of their besetting sins, and how shrewdly did she use them to their undoing.
I should never dare tell the wonderful combinations of letters which were brought together ere that dreadful word was spelled correctly; but such a rapid sitting down followed that a stranger coming suddenly upon them might have supposed that Miss Preston’s girls were fainting one after another.
About fifty words, all told, were spelled with more or less success, and then came the grand summing up, and those girls who could not yield a clean record from beginning to end had to pay the penalty.
Not a very severe one, to be sure, but one they were not likely to forget, for each word that they had misspelled was written upon a good-sized piece of paper and pinned upon their breasts “as a reward of demerit,” Miss Preston told them, and, although it was all done in fun and joked and laughed over at the time, each girl knew that those words must be thoroughly committed to memory before the Wednesday spelling match began its lively session, or her report at the end of the term would be lacking in completeness.