MISADVENTURES.
By the time Ruby had been at school a week she was quite happy, and had been so good that Aunt Emma wrote home to her father and mother that no one could ask for a better little girl, or one who made more progress in her studies.
In fact, Ruby had begun to be quite proud of herself for being so good, and quite enjoyed comparing herself with some of the other girls, who could not learn their lessons as quickly as she did, and who did not try so hard to be good and not give the teacher any trouble.
If Ruby's mother had been with her she would have warned the little girl that this was the very time for her to be most watchful lest she should do wrong, for it was generally when Ruby had the highest opinion of herself that her pride had a fall.
If any one had told Ruby upon this particular morning that she should laugh out loud in school, and more than that, laugh at Miss Ketchum, she would not have believed it, and yet that is just exactly what she did. Still, I think you will hardly blame Ruby when I tell you how it happened.
It was quite true that, as Agnes had said, Miss Ketchum was apt to be absent-minded sometimes. She was so interested in her studies that she sometimes forgot about other things, and while she never forgot anything connected with her scholars' lessons, yet she sometimes forgot little matters about her dress.
She wore her hair in a rather unusual way, and when it was brushed back and arranged she would pin a little round curl upon either side of her face. This morning she had somehow forgotten to pin one of these curls on, and as soon as the girls noticed it, they were very much amused.
If Miss Chapman had noticed it when she opened the school she would probably have reminded Miss Ketchum of it, but she did not see it, and none of the girls told her; so the curl was still missing when Ruby went up with the rest of the class to the desk, to recite her grammar lesson.
She was not quite sure that she knew it, and she had been studying so hard up to the last minute that she had not noticed how the other girls had been laughing behind their books and desk-covers, and had not even looked at Miss Ketchum since school began.
Ruby was at the head of the class, and so the first question came to her,—