Page:A Girl of the Limberlost.djvu/30

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12
A GIRL OF THE LIMBERLOST

The face of Professor Henley was a study. As Elnora took her seat he 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 steadily.

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

When the hour was gone the class filed back to the study room and Elnora followed in desperation, because she did not know where else to go. She could not study, as she had no books, and when the class again left the room to go to another professor for the next recitation, she went also. At least they could put her out if she did not belong there. Noon came at last, and she kept with the others until they dispersed on the sidewalk. She was so abnormally self-conscious she fancied all the hundreds of that laughing throng saw and jested at her. When she passed the brown-eyed boy walking with the girl of her encounter she knew, for she heard him say, "Did you really let that gawky piece of calico get ahead of you?" The answer was indistinct.

Elnora hurried from the city. She intended to get her