Page 5 - An Australian Lassie

A shocked expression passed over the face of the class.

"To whom were you addressing yourself?" asked the master.

"The new boy," said the little girl.

"Sit down, and stay in the dinner-hour and write out the sentence fifty times."

Elizabeth sat down, and again her anger against the new boy blazed high.

She put out her foot and kicked the heel of his boot, but this time she eschewed words, for the face of the
master was towards her, and an expectant silence hung over the schoolroom.

The clock struck ten, and the boy at the head of the class immediately began passing slates down--one to each
pupil, with a piece of pencil upon it.

The sight of the well-cleaned slate and nicely pointed pencil brought a feeling of great uneasiness to
Elizabeth.

Tt had been in her mind how nicely she could climb above the new boy, and the tell-tale girl, and all the other
boys and girls, and now the order of the day was--sums.

The master was writing them down on the blackboard, making them up as he went along, with due care
working nines and eights and sevens into his multiplicand and dealing but sparsely with fives and twos and
threes.

Elizabeth copied it down and rubbed it out. Copied it down and rubbed out half, by judicious breathings
directed judiciously; looked up the class to see how Cyril was progressing, and back to the board to see if a
pleasant little short division sum was lurking near this obnoxious multiplication; then back to her slate to
count the number of nines once more. And by that time the master was giving out his order: "Pencils down.
Hands behind you. At--tention."

Brown's face expressed such placidity that the master asked him to stand and give out the answer, and he gave
it gladly enough--999.009--which sounded particularly learned to a class not yet introduced to decimals.

The master nodded. "You are right," he said, "but no one is up to decimals yet."

So it happened that Brown made his reputation straightway, and with such ease did he solve every
arithmetical puzzle, that dinner-time saw him sitting smiling and covered with laurels at the head of the class,
and Elizabeth still at the bottom cleaning her slate to write "Cheaty, cheaty; go home and tell your mother,"
fifty times.

Wygate School was a preparatory school for boys and girls, although the girls out-numbered the boys. At the
present stage of its existence it had eighteen girls and twelve boys. Not half a mile distant was a public school,
to the precincts of which flocked fifty pupils daily, each of whom paid a modest threepence a week for
educationary advantages.

Wygate School was the only private school in the district, and was regarded respectfully by the
neighbourhood. So many "undesirables" were precluded from its benefits, by its charge of one guinea a
quarter.

John Brown, the new boy, whose age it appeared was thirteen years, was the eldest pupil in the school, and