ridiculous problem that I have no business with, and don't want to
have anything at all to do with. Mr. Murdstone makes a movement of
impatience which I have been expecting for a long time. Miss
Murdstone does the same. My mother glances submissively at them,
shuts the book, and lays it by as an arrear to be worked out when
my other tasks are done.

There is a pile of these arrears very soon, and it swells like a
rolling snowball. The bigger it gets, the more stupid I get. The
case is so hopeless, and I feel that I am wallowing in such a bog
of nonsense, that I give up all idea of getting out, and abandon
myself to my fate. The despairing way in which my mother and I
look at each other, as I blunder on, is truly melancholy. But the
greatest effect in these miserable lessons is when my mother
(thinking nobody is observing her) tries to give me the cue by the
motion of her lips. At that instant, Miss Murdstone, who has been
lying in wait for nothing else all along, says in a deep warning
voice:

'Clara!'

My mother starts, colours, and smiles faintly. Mr. Murdstone comes
out of his chair, takes the book, throws it at me or boxes my ears
with it, and turns me out of the room by the shoulders.

Even when the lessons are done, the worst is yet to happen, in the
shape of an appalling sum. This is invented for me, and delivered
to me orally by Mr. Murdstone, and begins, 'If I go into a
cheesemonger's shop, and buy five thousand double-Gloucester
cheeses at fourpence-halfpenny each, present payment' - at which I