"Bound the Sea of Okhotsk," commanded the teacher.
Thatcher leaned forward eagerly—her voice would tell the story!
Without looking around, with her hands in her lap, an absent look in her eyes, the girl began in a husky contralto voice: "Bounded on the north—" and went through the whole rigmarole in the same way, careless, but certain.
"What rivers would you cross in going from Moscow to Paris?"
Again the voice began and flowed on in the same measured indifferent way till the end was reached.
"Good heavens!" thought the Doctor, "they still teach that useless stuff. But how well she does it!"
After some words of praise, which the girl hardly seemed to listen to, she took her seat again.
Rose, on her part, saw another man of grace and power. She saw every detail of his dress. His dark, sensitive face, and splendid slope of his shoulders, the exquisite neatness and grace of his collar and tie and coat. But in his eyes was something that moved her, drew her. She felt something subtile there, refinement and sorrow, and emotions she could only dimly feel.
She could not keep her eyes from studying his face. She compared him with "William De Lisle," not deliberately, always unconsciously. He had nothing of the bold beauty of her ideal. This man was a scholar, and he was come out of the world beyond the Big Ridge, and besides, there was mystery and allurement in his face.
The teacher called as if commanding a regiment of cavalry. "Books. Ready!" There was a riotous clatter, which ended as quickly as it begun.