"They might have known what would happen." There was an ominous quiet in the various class rooms all morning; but nothing was said or done to indicate just when the storm would burst.
When the first class in algebra met, Anne trembled with fear, but Miss Leece, in a robin's egg-blue dress, which offset the angry hue of her complexion, was apparently too angry to trust herself to look in the direction of the young girl and the lesson progressed without incident.
However, she was only biding her time.
"Miss Pierson," she said, toward the end of the lesson, in a voice so rasping as to make the girls fairly shiver, "go to the blackboard and demonstrate this problem." Then she read aloud in the same disagreeable voice, the following difficult problem: "'Train A starts from Chicago going thirty miles an hour.

An hour later Train B starts from Chicago going thirty-five miles an hour.

How far from Chicago will they be when Train B passes Train A ?'" The girls looked up surprised.

The problem was well in advance of what they had been studying and Miss Leece was really asking Anne to recite something she had not yet learned.
Anne hardly knew how to reply to the terrible woman who stood glowering at her as if she would like to crush her to bits.
"I'm sorry," said the girl.

"I cannot." "Miss Nesbit," said the teacher, "will you demonstrate this problem ?" Miriam rose with a little smile of triumph on her face and went to the blackboard, where she worked out the problem.
"Why, what on earth does the woman mean ?" whispered Grace.