o see that the school had not noticed the
girl's familiarity even though they thought him "hard." He was not
sure upon reflection but that he had magnified her offense and had been
unnecessarily severe, and this feeling was augmented by his occasionally
finding her looking at him with the melancholy, wondering eyes of a
chidden animal. Later, as he was moving among the desks' overlooking
the tasks of the individual pupils, he observed from a distance that her
head was bent over her desk while her lips were moving as if repeating
to herself her lesson, and that afterwards, with a swift look around the
room to assure herself that she was unobserved, she made a hurried sign
of the cross. It occurred to him that this might have followed some
penitential prayer of the child, and remembering her tuition by the
padres it gave him an idea. He dismissed school a few moments earlier in
order that he might speak to her alone before Mr. Hoover arrived.

Referring to the slipper incident and receiving her assurances that
"she" (the slipper) was much too large and fell often "so," a fact
really established by demonstration, he seized his opportunity. "But
tell me, when you were with the padre and your slipper fell off, you did
not expect him to put it on for you?"

Concha looked at him coyly and then said triumphantly, "Ah, no! but he
was a priest, and you are a young caballero."

Yet even after this audacity Mr. Brooks found he could only recommend
to Mr. Hoover a change in the young girl's slippers, the absence of the
rose-pinned veil, and the substitution of a sunbonnet. For the rest
he must trust to circumstances. As Mr. Hoover--who with large paternal
optimism had professed to see already an improvement in her--helped her
into the saddle, the schoolmaster could not help noticing that she had
evidently expected him to perform that act of courtesy, and that she
looked correspondingly reproachful.

"The holy fathers used sometimes to let me ride with them on their
mules," said Concha, leaning over her saddle towards the schoolmaster.

"Eh, what, missy?" said the Protestant Mr. Hoover, pricking up his ears.
"Now you just listen to Mr. Brooks's doctrines, and never mind them
Papists," he added as he rode away, with the firm conviction that the
master had already commenced the task of her spiritual conversion.

The next day the master awoke to find his little school famous. Whatever
were the exaggerations or whatever the fancies