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“You will write, please, for the remaining ten minutes, on the topic previously assigned. I will finish what I had to say at the next recitation.“

The class in English Essayists drew a deep sigh and set to work.

Dr. John Elliot Eaton was as brilliant as reports had foretold when the term opened. He was also young and handsome, and he had charming manners, though he seldom let his classes know it. Generally he sat before them as cold, relentless, and impersonal as an icicle; and the minute the gong sounded the close of the hour he became, if possible, colder and more impenetrable than before. Even Babbie Hildreth, who was supposed to be going through college “on her smile,” found it impossible to “jolly” Dr. Eaton. Why he chose to be so unbending, no one knew. One party declared that he was afraid of girls, and trying to hide it; another said that he was a woman-hater, and didn’t intend to be bored by the attentions of susceptible damsels. Why, in the latter case, he was teaching at Harding, was not evident. His riding horse, his clothes, and his air of athletic, care-free well-being indicated that he was not dependent on an associate professor’s salary. Altogether he furnished an interesting subject for research. But there was one drawback; it was impossible to know him at all outside of his classes, and there he was devoted to ten-minute tests. His pupils hoped that he would speedily outgrow this taste,—it was quite evident that he was doing his first teaching. Meanwhile they endured stoically, and loftily informed their jeering friends, who had not elected English Essayists, that the really interesting courses were never “snaps”; and besides there was one fine thing about Dr. Eaton. He almost never called the roll, and he was a perfect gentleman about cuts.