er her assistance in the many new difficulties
which she saw the teacher might meet. She would have liked to show
Miss Hillary from the first that she was really quite grown-up and
genteel. She would help her with the names in the school register,
show her where the chalk was kept, and how the backs came off two of
the blackboard brushes, but could be kept on if you just held them
right, and how the bottom board of the blackboard might fall if you
weren't careful; and ever so much more valuable information. Miss
Hillary would have profited much more even than Elizabeth thought, if
she had accepted that young lady at her most grown-up estimate; and
Elizabeth would have profited even more. But, unfortunately for poor
Elizabeth, Miss Hillary was not one who easily understood.

The new teacher rang the bell and the school assembled, the big boys
straggling in last and flopping into their seats with a bored and
embarrassed air. The room was very quiet, the unaccustomed
surroundings impressing everyone into unaccustomed silence. For the
place had been all scrubbed and white-washed, and there were wonderful
new desks and seats that folded up all of their own accord when you
stood up, as if they worked by magic. There was a strange smell of
varnish, too, that added much to the feeling of newness.

As soon as prayers were over, the new teacher arose and delivered her
opening speech. Her manner was still distant and stately. She wished
to speak to them particularly, she said, on deportment, for she had
discovered that the children of rural communities were sadly deficient
in manners. Elizabeth quite lost the purport of the little address in
her admiration of the beautiful, long, high-sounding words with which
it was garnished. Elizabeth loved long words. She wished she could
remember just one or two of the biggest, and she would use them when
Mrs. Jarvis came. Suddenly a fine plan was born in her fertile brain.
All unmindful that Miss Hillary had given strict commands to everyone
to sit straight with folded arms, she snatched her slate and pencil.
She would write down the finest and most high-sounding of those words,
and how pleased and surprised Aunt Margaret would be when she used
them. She would look them up in the dictionary just as soon as she
could get a breathing-spell. There were "ideals" and "aspirations" and
"deportment" many times, and "disciplined"--which last Elizabeth
spelled without a "c." There w