noon
She had lost one day already , and she was not going to lose another if she could help it . The secretary smiled . `` If the instructor in the Preparatory will place you . '' Before noon she had passed the criticism needed for this , and was in the lowest grade of the Preparatory . But she was a student at the Synthesis , and she was there to work in the way that those who knew best bade her . She wished to endure hardness , and the more hardness the better . Cornelia found herself in the last of a long line of sections or stalls which flanked a narrow corridor dividing the girl students from the young men , who were often indeed hardly more than boys .