minded the most, though it was no slight
thing to see so many "absent" marks going down on her report, when she was
right in the room and had learned her lessons.

After what seemed to her an interminable time, the morning passed and the
school broke up. The children, controlled by that something in Miss
Melville's manner, and by Gypsy's averted head and burning cheeks, left
the room quickly, and Gypsy and her teacher were alone.

"Gypsy," said Miss Melville.

There was no answer.

"Gypsy."

There came a faint "Yes'm" from behind the desk-cover. Miss Melville laid
down her pencil, closed her own desk, and came and sat down on the bench
beside Gypsy.

"I wonder if you are as sorry as I am," she said, simply.

Something very bright glittered on Gypsy's lashes, and two great drops
stood on her hot cheeks.

"I don't see what possessed me!" she said, vehemently. "Why don't you turn
me out of school?"

"I did not think you could willingly try to make me trouble," continued
Miss Melville, without noticing the last remark.

The two great drops rolled slowly down Gypsy's cheeks, and into her mouth.
She swallowed them with a gulp, and brushed her hand, angrily, across her
eyes. Gypsy very seldom cried, but I fancy she came pretty near it on that
occasion.

"Miss Melville," she said, with an earnestness that was comical, in spite
of itself; "I wish you'd please to scold me. I should feel a great deal
better."

"Scoldings won't do you much good," said Miss Melville, with a sad smile;
"you must cure your own faults, Gypsy. Nobody else can do it for you."

Gypsy turned around in a little passion of despair.

"Miss Melville, _I can't_! It isn't in me--you don't know! Here this
very morning I got late to school, tipping Winnie over in a raft--drenched
through both of us, and mother, so patient and sweet with the dry
stockings she'd just mended, and wasn't I sorry? Didn't I think about it
all the way to school--the whole way, Miss Melville? And didn't I make up
my mind I'd be as good as a kitten all day, and sit still like Agnes
Gaylord, and not tickle the girls, nor make you any trouble, nor anything?
Then what should I do but come into the entry and see those things, and it
all came like a flash how funny it would be'n I'd talk up high like Mrs.
Surly 'n you wouldn't know me, and--that was the last I thought, till you
took off the veil, and I wished I hadn't done it. It's just like me--I
never can help anything anyh