ndness of her face lengthened into
a sweet wistfulness of wonder and pleading, as of one who would look
farther, since she heard sounds and saw signs in her sky which
indicated more beyond. Andrew and Fanny watched her more anxiously
than ever, and decided not to send her to school before spring,
though all the neighbors exclaimed at their tardiness in so doing.
"She'll be two years back of my Hattie gettin' into the
high-school," said one woman, bluntly, to Fanny, who retorted,
angrily,

"I don't care if she's ten years behind, if she don't lose her
health."

"You wait and see if she's two years behind!" exclaimed Eva, who had
just returned from the shop, and had entered the room bringing a
fresh breath of December air, her cheeks glowing, her black eyes
shining.

Eva was so handsome in those days that she fairly forced admiration,
even from those of her own sex whose delicacy of taste she offended.
She had a parcel in her hand, which she had bought at a store on her
way home, for she was getting ready to be married to Jim Tenny. "I
tell you there don't nobody know what that young one can do,"
continued Eva, with a radiant nod of triumph. "There ain't many
grown-up folks round here that can read like her, and she's studied
geography, and she knows her multiplication-table, and she can spell
better than some that's been through the high-school. You jest wait
till Ellen gets started on her schoolin'--she won't stay in the
grammar-school long, I can tell you that. She'll go ahead of some
that's got a start now and think they're 'most there." Eva pulled
off her hat, and the coarse black curls on her forehead sprang up
like released wire. She nodded emphatically with a good-humored
combativeness at the visiting woman and at her sister.

"I hope your cheeks are red enough," said Fanny, looking at her with
grateful admiration.

The visiting woman sniffed covertly, and a retort which seemed to
her exceedingly witty was loud in her own consciousness. "Them that
likes beets and pinies is welcome to them," she thought, but she did
not speak. "Well," said she, "folks must do as they think best about
their own children. I have always thought a good deal of an
education myself. I was brought up that way." She looked with eyes
that were fairly cruel at Eva Loud and Fanny, who had been a Loud,
who had both stopped going to school at a very early age.

Then the rich red flamed over Eva's forehead and neck as well as her
che