That was how it happened, that three minutes after entering the room she was told to take her place beside the girl who had gone last to the board, and whose flushed face and angry eyes avoided meeting Elnora’s.  Being compelled to concentrate on her proposition she forgot herself.  When the professor asked that all pupils sign their work she firmly wrote “Elnora Comstock” under her demonstration.  Then she took her seat and waited with white lips and trembling limbs, as one after another professor called the names on the board, while their owners arose and explained their propositions, or “flunked” if they had not found a correct solution.  She was so eager to catch their forms of expression and prepare herself for her recitation, that she never looked from the work on the board, until clearly and distinctly, “Elnora Comstock,” called the professor.

The dazed girl stared at the board.  One tiny curl added to the top of the first curve of the m in her name, had transformed it from a good old English patronymic that any girl might bear proudly, to Cornstock.  Elnora sat speechless.  When and how did it happen?  She could feel the wave of smothered laughter in the air around her.  A rush of anger turned her face scarlet and her soul sick.  The voice of the professor addressed her directly.

“This proposition seems to be beautifully demonstrated, Miss Cornstalk,” he said.  “Surely, you can tell us how you did it.”

That word of praise saved her.  She could do good work.  They might wear their pretty clothes, have their friends and make life a greater misery than it ever before had been for her, but not one of them should do better work or be more womanly.  That lay with her.  She was tall, straight, and handsome as she arose.

“Of course I can explain my work,” she said in natural tones.  “What I can’t explain is how I happened to be so stupid as to make a mistake in writing my own name.  I must have been a little nervous.  Please excuse me.”

She went to the board, swept off the signature with one stroke, then rewrote it plainly.  “My name is Comstock,” she said distinctly.  She returned to her seat and following the formula used by the others made her first high school recitation.

As Elnora resumed her seat Professor Henley looked at her steadily.  “It puzzles me,” he said deliberately, “how you can write as beautiful a demonstration, and explain it as clearly as ever has been done in any of my classes and still be so disturbed as to make a mistake in your own name.  Are you very sure you did that yourself, Miss Comstock?”

“It is impossible that any one else should have done it,” answered Elnora.

“I am very glad you think so,” said the professor.  “Being Freshmen, all of you are strangers to me.  I should dislike to begin the year with you feeling there was one among you small enough to do a trick like that.  The next proposition, please.”