Part 57 (1/2)
”You'll have to hurry more than you can, then, in cla.s.s,” Miss Bey remarked, ”if this is your ordinary rate of work.”
When the sums were done, she took the slate and glanced over them.
”They are every one wrong,” she said; ”but I see you know how to work them. Now clean the slate, and do some dictation.”
She took up a book when Beth was ready, and began to read aloud from it. Beth became so interested in the subject that she forgot the dictation, and burst out at last, ”Well, I never knew that before.”
”You are doing dictation now,” Miss Bey observed severely.
”All right, go on,” Beth cheerfully rejoined.
Miss Bey did not go on, however, and on looking up to see what was the matter, Beth found her gazing at her with bent brows.
”May I ask what your name is?” Miss Bey inquired.
”Beth Caldwell.”
”Then allow me to inform you, Miss Beth Caldwell, that 'all right, go on,' is not the proper way to address the head-mistress of the Royal Service School for Officers' Daughters.”
”Thank you for telling me,” Beth answered. ”You see I don't know these things. I always say that to mamma.”
”Have you ever been to school before?” Miss Bey asked.
”No,” Beth answered.
”Oh!” Miss Bey e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, with peculiar meaning. ”Then you will have a great deal to learn.”
”I suppose so,” Beth rejoined. ”But that's what I came for, you know--to learn. It's high time I began!”
She fixed her big eyes on the blank wall opposite, and there was a sorrowful expression in them. Miss Bey noted the expression, and nodded her head several times, but there was no relaxation of her peremptory manner when she spoke again.
”Go on, my dear,” she said. ”If I give as much time to the others as you are taking, I shall not get through the new girls to-night.”
Beth finished her dictation.
”What a hand!” Miss Bey exclaimed. ”Wherever did you learn to write like that?”
”I taught myself to write small on purpose,” Beth replied. ”You can get so much more on to the paper.”
”You had better have taught yourself to spell, then,” Miss Bey rejoined. ”There are four mistakes in this one pa.s.sage.”
Beth balanced her pencil on her finger with an air of indifference.
She was wondering how it was that the head-mistress of the Royal Service School for Officers' Daughters used the word ”wherever” as the vulgar do.
The examination concluded with some questions in history and geography, which Beth answered more or less incorrectly.
”I shall put you here in the sixth,” Miss Bey informed her; ”but rather for your size than for your acquirements. There is a delicate girl, much smaller than you are, in the first.”
”Then I'd rather be myself, tall and strong, in the sixth,” Beth rejoined. ”If I don't catch her up, at all events I shall have more pleasure in life, and that's something.”
Again Miss Bey gazed at her; but she was too much taken aback by Beth's readiness to correct her on the instant, although it was an unaccustomed and a monstrous thing for a girl to address a mistress in an easy conversational way, let alone differ from her.