Miss Crawdon did not smile, and Belle could not see the look of surprise on the faces of some of her classmates. But unfortunately she could see Julia's face and the involuntary smile on the latter's lips. She turned very red, and while Miss Crawdon proceeded to set her right, she registered a vow of dislike against that "prig of a Julia" who evidently knew more history than she did. Julia, too, caught the disagreeable look that flashed from Belle's eyes, and she greatly regretted that smile. Belle was one of those girls who seldom study a lesson thoroughly. She always had vague general ideas of the topic under consideration, gained by a rapid survey of the pages assigned for a lesson. When she could do so unobserved, sometimes during recitation she would look between the covers of her book to refresh her lagging memory. Nora and Edith and Brenda were also in the class with her, and sometimes one or the other of them would prompt her to save her from disgrace. Nora occasionally had pangs of conscience, and announced that she considered looking in a book or prompting, dishonorable. But sometimes she yielded to Belle's signals for help over a hard place. Belle did not often signal, for she relied as a general thing on her own fluency of language to conceal her lack of knowledge. Miss Crawdon, however, had what Belle called an aggravating way of making her repeat her words until her mistakes were displayed in all their nakedness to the rest of the class.