"I made that poem! It's all about the haunted house, you know. Mrs. Fogg says nobody but just we two dares to go there. She says the devil has been seen there. I say he lives in the school-house. Eighteen hundred and forty-four into three thousand six hundred and eighty-eight. Why, father, that's just twice and none over. Now I've got to climb to the top of the haunted house on a ladder made of noughts, noughts, noughts!"
Her rambling subsided into whispers. She fell to tracing figures and drawing lines upon the counterpane, her brows knitted, her lips moving fast.
"That is worse than the singing," said Mrs. McLaren, aside, to her brother. "She will work at that sum for an hour at a time. It is wearing her out. Heaven forgive that teacher!"
The father did not say "Amen."