As she stood waiting, the girl of the hall passed on her way to the blackboard, and suppressed laughter told Elnora that her thrust had been repeated.
"Be seated," said the professor, and then because he saw Elnora was desperately embarrassed he proceeded to lend her a book and to ask her if she had studied algebra.

She said she had a little, but not the same book they were using.

He asked her if she felt that she could do the work they were beginning, and she said she did.
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 Cornstock," called the professor.
The dazed girl stared at the board.