“I do,” said Marjorie.

“Master McCosh will give you a mark for transgressing.”

“Oh, I forgot!” exclaimed Marjorie; “but he is so much my brother that it is not against the rules.”

“Is he a sailor?” asked Emma Downs.

“Yes,” said Marjorie.

“A common sailor!”

“No, an uncommon one.”

“Is he before the mast?” she persisted.

“Does he look so?” asked Marjorie, seriously.

“No, he looks like a captain; only that cap is not dignified enough.”

“It’s becoming,” said Miss Parks, “and that’s better than dignity.”

The bell rang and the girls passed into the schoolroom in twos and threes.  A table ran almost the length of the long, high apartment; it was covered with green baize and served as a desk for the second class girls; the first class girls occupied chairs around three sides of the room, during recitation the chairs were turned to face the teacher, at other times the girls sat before a leaf that served as a rest for their books while they studied, shelves being arranged above to hold the books.  The walls of the room were tinted a pale gray.  Mottoes in black and gold were painted in one straight line above the book shelves, around the three sides of the room.  Marjorie’s favorites were: 

TO DESIRE TO KNOW—­TO KNOW, IS CURIOSITY.

TO DESIRE TO KNOW—­TO BE KNOWN, IS VANITY.

TO DESIRE TO KNOW—­TO SELL YOUR KNOWLEDGE, IS COVETOUSNESS.

TO DESIRE TO KNOW—­TO EDIFY ONE’S SELF, IS PRUDENCE.

TO DESIRE TO KNOW—­TO EDIFY OTHERS, IS CHARITY.

TO DESIRE TO KNOW—­TO GLORIFY GOD, IS RELIGION.

The words were very ancient, Master McCosh told Marjorie, the last having been written seven hundred years later than the others.  The words “TO GLORIFY GOD” were over Marjorie’s desk.

The first class numbered thirty.  Clarissa Parks was the beauty of the class, Emma Downs the poet, Lizzie Harrowgate the mathematician, Maggie Peet the pet, Ella Truman wrote the finest hand, Maria Denyse was the elocutionist, Pauline Hayes the one most at home in universal history, Marjorie West did not know what she was:  the remaining twenty-two were in no wise remarkable; one or two were undeniably dull, more were careless, and most came to school because it was the fashion and they must do something before they were fully grown up.

At each recitation the student who had reached the head of the class was marked “head” and took her place in the next recitation at the foot.  During the first hour and a half there were four recitations—­history, astronomy, chemistry, and English literature.  That morning Marjorie, who did not know what she was in the class, went from the foot through the class, to the head three times; it would have been four times but she gave the preference to Pauline Hayes who had written the correct date half a second after her own was on the slate.  “Miss Hayes writes more slowly than I,” she told Master McCosh.  “She was as sure of it as I was.”