se, nevertheless came out strong in classical
elocution, and Tom Hardee, who had delivered his ungrammatical protest
on behalf of Pike County, was no less strong, if more elegant, in his
impeachment of Warren Hastings as Edmund Burke, with the equal sanction
of his parents. The trustees, Sperry and Jackson, had marveled, but
were glad enough to accept the popular verdict--only Mr. Peaseley still
retained an attitude of martyr-like forbearance and fatigued toleration
towards the new assistant and his changes. As to Mrs. Martin, she seemed
to accept the work of Mr. Twing after his own definition of it--as of a
masculine quality ill-suited to a lady's tastes and inclinations; but it
was noticeable that while she had at first repelled any criticism of him
whatever, she had lately been given to explaining his position to her
friends, and had spoken of him with somewhat labored and ostentatious
patronage. Yet when they were alone together she frankly found him very
amusing, and his presumption and vulgarity so clearly unintentional that
it no longer offended her. They were good friends without having any
confidences beyond the duties of the school; she had asked no further
explanation of the fact that he had been selected by Mr. Barstow
without reference to any special antecedent training. What his actual
antecedents were she had never cared to know, nor he apparently to
reveal; that he had been engaged in some other occupations of superior
or inferior quality would not have been remarkable in a community where
the principal lawyer had been a soldier, and the miller a doctor. The
fact that he admired her was plain enough to HER; that it pleased her,
but carried with it no ulterior thought or responsibility, might have
been equally clear to others. Perhaps it was so to HIM.

Howbeit, this easy mutual intercourse was one day interrupted by what
seemed a trifling incident. The piano, which Mr. Barstow had promised,
duly made its appearance in the schoolhouse, to the delight of the
scholars and the gentle satisfaction of Mrs. Martin, who, in addition to
the rudimentary musical instruction of the younger girls, occasionally
played upon it herself in a prim, refined, and conscientious fashion.
To this, when she was alone after school hours, she sometimes added a
faint, colorless voice of limited range and gentlewomanly expression. It
was on one of these occasions that Twing, becoming an accidental auditor
of this chaste, sad piping,