He began to persecute her because she could not keep her class in proper condition, because her class was the weak link in the chain which made up the school.

One of the offences was that her class was noisy and disturbed Mr. Harby, as he took Standard Seven at the other end of the room. She was taking composition on a certain morning, walking in among the scholars. Some of the boys had dirty ears and necks, their clothing smelled unpleasantly, but she could ignore it. She corrected the writing as she went.

“When you say 'their fur is brown', how do you write 'their'?” she asked.

There was a little pause; the boys were always jeeringly backward in answering. They had begun to jeer at her authority altogether.