The time dragged on slowly. No morning had ever seemed so long, in the
opinion of the girls. The weary rounds of literature and physical
geography were succeeded by English grammar, with a discomfiting
interval of French verbs. Aldred, surreptitiously consulting her watch,
found it was just after half-past ten. Nearly half an hour, therefore,
must elapse before lunch, and Miss Webb was already opening the Roman
history primer. A look of horror passed along the Form. If their other
subjects had been weak, this was decidedly weaker. Not one could
remember a quarter of what she had learned. They had hoped that, as this
subject was the last on the list, it would have been left so late that
only a few pages could be covered; they certainly had not calculated on
spending twenty-five minutes at it.