quake";
and the little schoolma'am heard of it and almost wished it had been a
real earthquake and had swallowed her up.

"Oh, Papa Dunlee! Oh, Mamma Dunlee!" she cried, her cheeks crimson, her
eyelids swollen from weeping. "I keep finding out that I'm not half so
much of a girl as I thought I was! What does make me do such ridiculous
things?"

"You are only very young, you dear child," replied her parents.

They pitied her sincerely and did their best to console her. But they
were wise people, and perhaps they knew that their eldest daughter
needed to be humbled just a little. It was hard, very hard, yet
sometimes it is the hard things which do us most good.

"O mamma, don't ask me to go down to dinner. I can't, I can't!"

"No indeed, darling, your dinner shall be sent up to you. What would you
like?"

"No matter what, mamma--I don't care for eating. I can't ever hold up my
head any more. And as for going into that school again, I never, never,
never will do it."

"I think you will, my daughter," said Mr. Dunlee, quietly. "I think
you'll go back and live this down and 'twill soon be all forgotten."

"O papa, do you really, really think 'twill ever be forgotten? Do you
think so, mamma? A silly, disgraceful, foolish, outrageous,
abominable,--there, I can't find words bad enough!"

As her parents were leaving the room she revived a little and added:--

"Remember, mamma, just soup and chicken and celery. But a full saucer of
ice-cream. I hope 'twill be vanilla."

XIII

NATE'S CAVE

The little teacher went back to her school the very next day. It was a
hard thing, but she knew her parents desired it. Her proud head was
lowered; she could not meet the eyes of the children, who seemed to be
trying their best not to laugh. At last she spoke:--

"I got frightened yesterday. I was not very brave; now was I? Hark! The
people in the mine are blasting rocks again, but we won't run away, will
we?"

They laughed, and she tried to laugh, too. Then she called the classes
into the floor; and no more did she ever say to the scholars about the
earthquake. She helped Nate in his arithmetic, and he treated her like a
queen. He was coming to Aunt Vi's room that evening to show his
knee-buckles and cocked hat and find out just what he was to do on the
stage.

Kyzie wanted to see the cocked hat and felt interested in her own white
cap which Mrs. McQuilken was making. It was a good thing for Katharine
that she had