Being finally equipped, she casts her eye at the clock,
hopes to be in tolerable good season (notwithstanding that the hour for
opening the school has already arrived), and sets out in the most
violent hurry.
"After so much haste, she is unfitted for attending properly to the
duties of the school until a considerable time after her arrival. If
present at the devotional exercises, she finds it difficult to command
her attention even when desirous of so doing, and her deportment at this
hour is, accordingly, marked with an unbecoming listlessness and
abstraction.
"When called to recitations, she recollects that some task was assigned,
which, till that moment, she had forgotten; of others she had mistaken
the extent, most commonly thinking them to be shorter than her
companions suppose. In her answers to questions with which she should be
familiar, she always manifests more or less of hesitation, and what she
ventures to express is very commonly in the form of a question. In
these, as in all exercises, there is an inattention to general
instructions. Unless what is said be addressed particularly to herself,
her eyes are directed toward another part of the room; it may be, her
thoughts are employed about something not at all connected with the
school. If reproved by her teacher for negligence in any respects, she
is generally provided with an abundance of excuses, and however mild the
reproof, she receives it as a piece of extreme severity.
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