The professor finally lost all patience. “Take your books,” he commanded, “open and study the lesson the remainder of the hour, and the first one I see dawdling or whispering will be sent back to the session room.” Hinpoha’s eyes followed the lines on the page, but she could not have told what she was reading. The question was still beating back and forth in her mind.
“Lend me your pencil,” whispered her neighbor. Mechanically she held it out to him and when he took it he thrust a stick of gum into her hand. He was still in a festive mood. Professor Knoblock caught the movement. At the same moment another pair in the back of the room began giggling about something.
“You two are out of order!” shouted the professor. “Leave the room!” All eyes were turned toward the two in the back.
“I mean you, George Hancock, and you, Dorothy Bradford,” said the Professor severely. Hinpoha turned pleading, unbelieving eyes on him. “Leave the room,” he repeated with rising anger, “go back to your session room!” And with the world rocking under her feet, Hinpoha went.
As the pupils came back from their respective classes that noon there was a sensation in the air. Groups of girls stood around whispering to one another and exclaiming. “Did you ever hear anything like it?” rose on all sides. “Who would ever dream of her getting——”
Hinpoha, dumb and miserable, sat apart, until some one dragged her into the center of a group. “Have you heard the news?”
“Miss Snively’s engaged!” announced a young lady, in the same tone she would have said: “The sky has fallen!”
“Professor Knoblock!” continued the speaker. “They’ve been engaged a long time—but it just leaked out yesterday in a teachers’ meeting. That’s why he came here to teach.”
“But the notes he wrote me,” moaned Hinpoha to the Winnebagos, who had gathered for an indignation meeting that afternoon. “And the curl I gave him—— Oh-oh-oh!” and she hid her face in her hands and groaned.
Katherine had been poking about in a corner of the room during the preliminary wail. She now came forward carrying a box in her hand which she laid on Hinpoha’s knee.
Hinpoha complied and there fell into her lap a long, curling, red ringlet and a piece of paper written over in Hinpoha’s hand.