ing as furiously as the
young lady, grasped the books in a promiscuous heap and slammed them
down upon Rosie's desk with, "There now, butter-fingers." The school
laughed aloud, and Rosie curled up behind the pile of books and cried
with vexation. Joel Davis was such a horrid, horrid, dirty, fat boy
that it was just real nasty mean of Miss Hillary to let him pick up her
books, so it was. Elizabeth, all sympathy, patted her comfortingly,
and twisted one of Rosie's curls round her fingers as she whispered
soothing words.

But Miss Hillary was again talking, and she slid over to her own side
of the seat and gave scared attention. It was time she gave another
talk upon manners and morals, the teacher declared, and Elizabeth's
heart sank. She knew she had no manners to speak of, and on Sundays
she was often doubtful of her morals. And when Miss Hillary gave
semi-monthly lectures on these two troublesome subjects they caused her
acute misery. But to-day the address was chiefly to the boys.
Evidently it was only the masculine side of the school that was lacking
in manners and morals. Miss Hillary declared she must strive to
inculcate a spirit of chivalry in them, and teach them the proper
attitude towards girls.

Elizabeth gave a sigh of relief. This was no concern of hers, except
that she devoutly hoped it might make John and the Pretender stop
pulling hair. So she gave her attention to softly taking down the
longest words the little lecture contained. Miss Hillary had gone
sufficiently far on the road of understanding to make this safe. She
sometimes even glanced approvingly at her disciple's flying fingers
when she uttered a polysyllable of more than usual distinction. Rosie
came from behind her shelter of books, and, wiping away her tears,
attempted to help Elizabeth. There was a word that Lizzie had missed,
she cautioned. Something like "shivering"--a spirit of shivering or
"shivaree." But Elizabeth, in the midst of "gallantry," shook her
head. That was just chivalry. She knew all about that. It was a
glorious word that took in Ivanhoe, and the ladye that went ower the
border and awa', and Joan of Arc, yes--and Elizabeth herself. But
there was no use trying to explain it to Rosie, for, though Rosie was
the dearest dear that ever sat with anybody in school, there were many
things that even she did not understand.

Meanwhile, the talk on manners and morals had drawn to a close and
Elizabeth went back