afterwards. It almost seemed as if it were not she who was teaching
but somebody else. She heard classes and worked sums and set copies
mechanically. The children behaved quite well; only two cases of
discipline occurred. Morley Andrews was caught driving a pair of trained
crickets in the aisle. Anne stood Morley on the platform for an
hour and . . . which Morley felt much more keenly . . . confiscated his
crickets. She put them in a box and on the way from school set them free
in Violet Vale; but Morley believed, then and ever afterwards, that she
took them home and kept them for her own amusement.

The other culprit was Anthony Pye, who poured the last drops of water
from his slate bottle down the back of Aurelia Clay's neck. Anne kept
Anthony in at recess and talked to him about what was expected of
gentlemen, admonishing him that they never poured water down ladies'
necks. She wanted all her boys to be gentlemen, she said. Her little
lecture was quite kind and touching; but unfortunately Anthony remained
absolutely untouched. He listened to her in silence, with the same
sullen expression, and whistled scornfully as he went out. Anne
sighed; and then cheered herself up by remembering that winning a Pye's
affections, like the building of Rome, wasn't the work of a day. In
fact, it was doubtful whether some of the Pyes had any affections to
win; but Anne hoped better things of Anthony, who looked as if he might
be a rather nice boy if one ever got behind his sullenness.

When school was dismissed and the children had gone Anne dropped wearily
into her chair. Her head ached and she felt woefully discouraged. There
was no real reason for discouragement, since nothing very dreadful had
occurred; but Anne was very tired and inclined to believe that she would
never learn to like teaching. And how terrible it would be to be doing
something you didn't like every day for . . . well, say forty years. Anne