My little room-mate and classmate St. Clair was perhaps the only exception to the general rule. I never felt that she liked me much. She let me alone, however; until one unlucky day—I do not mean to call it unlucky, either—when we had, as usual, compositions to write, and the theme given out was "Ruins." It was a delightful theme to me. I did not always enjoy writing compositions; this one gave me permission to roam in thoughts and imaginations that I liked. I went back to my old Egyptian studies at Magnolia, and wrote my composition about "Karnak." The subject was full in my memory; I had gone over and over and all through it; I had measured the enormous pillars and great gateways, and studied the sculpture on the walls, and paced up and down the great avenue of sphinxes. Sethos, and Amunoph and Rameses, the second and third, were all known and familiar to me; and I knew just where Shishak had recorded his triumphs over the land of Judea. I wrote my composition with the greatest delight. The only danger was that I might make it too long.
One evening I was using the last of the light, writing in the window recess of the school parlour, when I felt a hand laid on my shoulders.
"You are so hard at work!" said the voice of Mlle. Géneviève.
"Yes, mademoiselle, I like it."
"Have you got all the books and all that you want?"
"Books, mademoiselle?"—I said wondering.
"Yes; have you got all you want?"
"I have not got any books," I said; "there are none that I want in the school library."
"Have you never been in madame's library?"